T  \f- 


PATCHWORK 


BY 


BEVERLEY  NICHOLS 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1922 


Copyright,  1922, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


PRINTED    IN   THE    UNITED    STATES   OF    AMERICA 


To 
PAUL  AND  ALAN 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

It  is  the  custom  of  novelists  to-day,  even  when 
writing  obviously  of  public  men  or  women,  glibly  to 
inform  their  readers  that  these  characters  are  entirely 
imaginary.  Whether  such  a  fiction  expresses  a  secret 
wish  that  they  had  indeed  been  creatures  of  the  brain 
and  not  of  the  flesh,  I  do  not  know.  I  would  merely 
say  that  it  is  not  a  fiction  in  which  I  would  myself  in- 
dulge. It  would  have  been  quite  impossible,  in  writing 
of  that  university  from  which  I  have  so  recently  and 
so  reluctantly  departed,  to  banish  from  my  memory 
the  figures  which  coloured  its  stage  so  vividly,  to  try 
to  shut  from  my  ears  the  echo  of  their  laughter  and 
their  talk.  And  so  I  may  as  well  admit  that  a  few — 
a  very  few — of  the  characters  in  this  book  are  founded 
on  fact.  Where  this  has  been  the  case  I  have  been 
scrupulous  that  the  persons  concerned  should  read  the 
manuscript  before  it  was  published.  In  no  case  has 
any  objection  been  raised. 

Raymond  Sheldon,  however,  the  chief  figure  (he 
would  have  hated  to  be  called  a  "hero"),  is,  to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  an  imaginary  character.  It  is  true 
that  he  did  many  things  which  I  myself  did,  but  he 
did  them  in  quite  a  different  way ;  and  though  I  admire 
him  very  much,  I  do  not  approve  of  all  his  actions. 

For  the  sake  of  unity  certain  happenings  have  been 
transposed  as  far  as  their  chronological  order  is  con- 
cerned.    For  instance,  the  Christ  Church  ball  was  held 

v 


vi  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

in  1920  and  not  in  1919.  I  trust  that  these  departures 
from  strict  accuracy  will  not  worry  the  general  reader, 
because  apart  from  minor  details  such  as  these,  I  have 
endeavoured  to  give  as  faithful  a  picture  as  possible  of 
the  New  Oxford,  the  Oxford  which  has  emerged 
from  the  chaos  of  war,  and  which  has  even  yet  to  re- 
cover her  ancient  tranquillity  and  many  of  her  most 
precious  traditions. 

B.  N. 
Cleave  Court,  Torquay. 
February — June,  1921.     / 


CONTENTS 

CHAPT1 

PART  I 

!B 

PAGE 

I. 

Entry 

3 

II. 

Initiation 

21 

III. 

Resolve 

43 

IV. 

Crowded  Life 

67 

V. 

Ray  Mixes  His  Colours 

87 

VI. 

Coterie 

IOO 

VII. 

Blue  and  Silver 

PART  II 

119 

I. 

Midsummer  Madness 

149 

II. 

Reaction 

165 

III. 

Hostility 

184 

IV. 

Benedicite 

207 

V. 

Applause 

224 

VI. 

Purple 

PART  III 

239 

I. 

Lavender 

253 

II. 

The  Return  of  the  Abnormal 

273 

III. 

Impromptu 

286 

IV. 

Climax 

296 

V. 

Anti-Climax 

317 

VI. 

Ray  Alone 

34o 

Peroration 

347 

vii 

God  gleaming  red  and  gold  in  flame, 
God  thundering  in  sky  and  sea, 
I  daring  to  invoke  Your  Name 
Pray  now  that  of  Your  Majesty 
This  blessing  may  descend  on  me. 

Grant  that  before  my  spirit  sings 
The  plaintive  mumbled  songs  of  age, 
And  quickened  life  no  longer  springs 
Across  the  ever-darkening  stage 
Whereover  is  my  pilgrimage, 

Before  my  sense  of  loss  and  gain 
Is  blurred  to  cold  indifference, 
Before  I  lose  both  joy  and  pain 
Wherein  is  wrought  experience, 
And  life  no  longer  burns  intense 

Before  this  hour  of  soul's  decline 
To  idle  calm,  self-satisfied, 
Answer,  O  God,  this  prayer  of  mine 
And  send  the  Angel  Death  to  guide 
My  soul  upon  that  path  of  pride, 

Where  human  weakness  cannot  kill 
The  vigorous  male  enterprise, 
That  brands  upon  the  human  will 
The  vision  of  Your  splendid  eyes 
Smiling  from  Hell  to  Paradise.  .  .  . 

CLIFFORD  KITCHIN. 


PART  I 


CHAPTER  I 

ENTRY 

RAYMOND    SHELDON    sat    on    the    floor 
surrounded  by  the  contents  of  all  the  drawers 
in  his  room. 

Outside  in  the  London  streets,  it  was  pouring 
with  rain,  and  he  had  taken  this  opportunity  of 
tidying  before  going  to  Oxford  on  the  morrow.  It 
seemed  to  be  the  first  opportunity  he  had  had. 
Although  over  two  months  had  elapsed  since  the 
Armistice,  it  had  been  so  wonderful  to  be  at  home, 
to  be  free,  that  he  had  left  everything  till  the  last 
moment.  And  now  he  found  himself  up  to  the 
eyes  in  muddle. 

However,  it  was  rather  a  fascinating  muddle. 
He  found  it  amusing  to  plunge  his  hands  into  the 
middle  of  the  heap  and  see  what  he  drew  out. 
First  it  was  an  old  safety  razor — pathetic  emblem 
of  the  days  when  he  had  first  found  his  cheeks 
clouded  by  an  apologetic  growth  of  fluff.  Next,  a 
packet  of  broken  crayons,  the  brighter  reds  and 
blues  worn  into  clumsy  little  stumps,  while  the 
pale  anaemic  greens  and  mauves  were  hardly 
touched  at  all.  Then  an  old  pair  of  motor  goggles, 
with   their   attendant  memories   of  glorious  sum- 

3 


4  PATCHWORK 

mers  spent  in  whirling  through  France  and  Spain. 

He  supposed,  rather  sadly,  that  he  ought  to 
throw  all  these  absurd  things  away.  The  safety 
razor  was  out  of  order,  he  would  probably  never 
want  the  crayons,  and  the  motor  goggles  were  quite 
childish.  However,  it  was  not  unpleasant  to  be 
childish  again.  These  heaps  of  miscellaneous  rub- 
bish represented  his  life  till  he  had  been  eighteen. 
And  then  for  two  years  there  was  a  gap,  marked 
only  by  an  identity  disc  which  somehow  or  other 
had  got  mixed  up  with  the  other  things.  Ray  hated 
the  gap  and  wanted  to  forget  it,  and  perhaps  that  is 
the  reason  why  he  threw  the  identity  disc  into  the 
fire  with  such  unwonted  energy. 

He  turned  his  attention  to  the  heap  again.  He 
ought  to  look  through  all  those  papers  which  lay  in 
formidable  bunches  by  his  feet.  He  leant  forward 
and  picked  one  up.  It  turned  out  to  be  an  essay 
in  comparison  between  Gladstone  and  Disraeli  which 
had  been  set  him  years  ago  at  school.  He  smiled 
as  he  turned  over  the  crumpled  leaves.  How 
absurdly  childish  it  seemed  now!  Even  his  writing 
had  completely  altered.  Then,  it  had  been  timid 
and  round,  with  little  fat  "d's,"  and  "i's"  with 
their  dots  dutifully  hovering  exactly  in  the  right 
place.  Now,  it  was  quite  different,  freer  and  more 
flowing,  with  the  dots  of  the  "i's"  blown  all  over 
the  place,  typifying  the  mental  chaos  in  which  he 
found  himself. 


ENTRY  5 

He  threw  away  the  essay  and  picked  up  another 
sheet  of  paper.  It  was  the  programme  of  the  first 
concert  at  which  he  had  ever  appeared.  The  date 
was  1909,  and  he  was  only  eleven  then,  so  that  it 
was  not  so  bad  to  have  been  able  to  play  even 
Mendelssohn's  "Spring  Song"  at  that  early  period. 
However,  that  had  been  but  the  first  of  many 
successes,  finishing  up  with  a  performance  of 
Chopin's  first  Concerto  on  his  last  day  at  school. 
How  he  had  starved  for  music  in  the  last  two 
years!  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  wonderful  things 
about  Oxford  would  be  that  he  would  be  able  to 
have  a  piano  of  his  own  again. 

He  decided  that  he  would  keep  the  programme. 
After  all,  he  didn't  know  what  he  was  going  to  do, 
and  whether  he  became  a  professional  pianist,  or  a 
barrister,  or  a  diplomat,  or  a  novelist — (and  at  that 
moment  he  felt  quite  capable  of  being  all  four  at 
once) — it  would  always  be  interesting  to  have  them 
to  look  back  on.  For  the  same  reason  he  decided 
to  keep  his  diaries.  Like  most  diaries,  they  varied 
extremely  as  regards  the  matter  they  contained. 
The  tiny  red  one,  at  the  top  of  the  pile,  had 
belonged  to  his  private  school  days,  and  was  filled 
chiefly  with  notes  about  his  "prep,"  and  accounts 
of  the  various  stamps  he  had  "swopped" — unused 
Nicaraguas,  triangular  Liberias,  "and  a  gorgeous 
set  of  Malay  States  with  tigers  on."  He  decided 
that  he  would  keep  the  red  diary,  especially  as  it 


6  PATCHWORK 

also  contained  the  sad  little  account  of  his  father's 
death.  He  had  written  it  out  in  a  shaky,  sprawling 
hand,  and  had  edged  it  in  black  chalk,  now  rather 
smudged. 

Ray  put  the  diary  in  his  pocket  and  turned 
quickly  to  the  others.  They  were  more  neatly 
kept,  but  on  the  whole  not  so  interesting,  except 
when  he  was  suddenly  shaken  by  a  wave  of  intro- 
spection. Then  the  writer  would  go  on  for  page 
after  page,  entirely  ignoring  dates,  and  covering  the 
as  yet  untasted  Wednesdays,  Thursdays,  Fridays, 
and  Saturdays  with  a  passionate  medley  of  the 
present,  so  that  when  those  days  eventually  came 
along  he  had  nowhere  to  write  except  in  the  margin. 
After  all,  that  is  the  principle  on  which  many  men 
expend  their  lives,  to  say  nothing  of  their  diaries. 

Diaries,  paint-boxes,  stamp-albums,  childish 
poems,  old  letters — what  a  mess  it  all  was!  And 
then,  what  was  he  to  do  with  all  these  photographs? 
He  picked  them  up  indiscriminately.  Here  was 
one  taken  at  Nice,  on  his  first  visit  to  the  Riviera. 
There  was  his  mother  in  her  absurdly  large  hat, 
shading  the  sun  off  his  puckered  face  with  her 
parasol.  Another  showed  him  in  a  group  at 
school — a  very  frowning  and  earnest  boy  with  not 
too  clean  a  collar.  What  a  lot  of  them  there 
were — Ray  in  flannels,  in  an  Eton  suit,  in  a  bathing 
costume,  in  nothing  at  all  except  a  rather  inadequate 


ENTRY  7 

sponge,  and  finally  in  the  uniform  of  the  Grenadiers. 
Personally,  he  would  rather  have  not  been  taken  in 
uniform,  but  his  mother  had  insisted,  and  so  he 
had  compromised  by  going  to  Bertram  Park,  who 
was,  as  he  said,  the  only  photographer  who  wouldn't 
make  him  look  military.  And  certainly  there  was 
nothing  military  about  this  photograph.  Indeed, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  uniform,  it  might  have 
been  mistaken  for  a  picture  of  a  young  artist, 
painted  by  himself. 

Ray  sighed,  and  threw  the  photographs  back  on 
the  heap.     Suddenly  he  looked  over  his  shoulder. 

"Hullo,  mother,"  he  said,  looking  up  and 
taking  her  hand. 

Lady  Sheldon  looked  at  him  and  smiled.  "Oh, 
Ray,  what  a  dreadful  muddle!" 

"Isn't  it  appalling?  I'm  trying  to  see  what  I 
can  get  rid  of." 

She  sat  down  by  the  fire.  "Why  do  you  want 
to  get  rid  of  anything?" 

.Ray  got  up  and  disentangled  himself  from  the 
general  chaos.  "Well,  I  can't  keep  all  this,"  he 
said. 

Lady  Sheldon  looked  vaguely  at  the  pile.  "No, 
I  suppose  you  can't.  But  I  don't  see  why  you 
shouldn't,  really." 

"Well,  what's  the  use?"  He  kicked  a  bundle 
of  old  exercise  books'  so  that  the  dust  came  from 


8  PATCHWORK 

them  in  clouds.     "They're  all  as  old  as  the  hills." 

She  laughed.  "They  aren't  any  older  than  you 
are,  Ray  dear." 

"Well,  I  feel  centuries  old  now."  He  leant  his 
head  against  the  wall. 

A  shadow  of  pain  crossed  her  face.  Lady 
Sheldon  knew  only  too  well  how  deeply  the  war 
had  affected  Ray.  It  is  true  that  he  had  only  had 
two  years  of  the  army,  and  that  only  three  months 
of  those  had  been  spent  in  France,  but  to  a  nature 
like  his,  intensely  sensitive,  intensely  artistic,  a 
nature  moreover  which,  apart  from  the  minor 
struggles  of  school  life,  had  never  known  any  suffer- 
ing at  all,  three  months  in  France  might  well 
change  his  whole  character,  his  outlook  on  life. 

The  war  had  indeed  changed  him.  In  what 
way,  he  himself  could  hardly  tell.  He  intensely 
resented  the  idea  of  being  changed.  As  soon  as  he 
had  come  out  of  the  army,  he  had  thrown  off  his 
uniform  and  shuddered  with  delight  when  he  felt 
once  more  the  caress  of  a  tweed  coat.  He  was 
going  to  forget  everything,  all  the  horrible  things 
he  had  been  through.  He  was  going  to  take  up 
life  where  he  had  left  it  off. 

But  somehow,  it  had  not  been  as  easy  as  he  had 
hoped.  He  remembered  the  positive  shame  he  had 
felt  when  he  had  sat  down  at  the  piano  to  try  to 
play  a  Chopin  Etude,  and  had  found  that  his 
fingers  refused  to  do  anything  that  he  wanted.    It 


ENTRY  9 

was  like  being  suddenly  struck  dumb.  In  sheer 
desperation  he  had  practised  six  hours  a  day  for  a 
month  till  he  had  got  back,  to  a  small  extent,  some 
rudiments  of  technique.  He  remembered  too  how 
he  had  opened  a  volume  of  Keats — Keats  who  once 
had  made  him  drunk  with  music  and  beauty.  He 
had  not  been  moved  in  the  least.  Even  the  "Ode 
to  a  Grecian  Urn"  left  him  cold.  It  had  been  the 
same  with  everything — and  Ray  had  found  himself 
wondering  if  he  had  any  capacity  for  emotion  left 
at  all. 

However,  that  had  proved  only  temporary. 
Slowly  at  first,  and  then  with  a  rush,  old  beauties, 
old  pictures,  old  songs — all  had  shown  themselves 
to  him  with  their  former  magic — a  magic  intensified 
by  two  years  of  absence.  And  the  result  had  been 
that  he  now  found  himself  in  a  state  of  mental 
chaos  without  parallel,  not  knowing  whether  he  was 
happy  or  whether  he  was  sad.  All  he  knew  was 
that  he  wanted  to  live,  and  that  he  was  going  to 
Oxford  to-morrow. 

He  glanced  at  his  mother,  who  was  kneeling 
down  in  the  middle  of  a  little  heap  which  she  had 
collected  round  her. 

"What  are  you  looking  at?"  he  said,  kneeling 
beside  her. 

She  pointed  to  the  picture  of  Ray  with  the 
sponge.  "Oh,  Ray  dear,  you  were  such  a  nice 
baby." 


io  PATCHWORK 

"That  sounds  as  if  I  wasn't  nice  now." 

"•Don't  be  silly,  you  really  were.  You  never 
cried  once — or  hardly  once — and  every  one  said 
you  were  the  nicest  baby  they'd  ever  seen." 

"I'm  afraid  you're  being  sentimental,"  said 
Ray  sternly. 

She  looked  at  him  wistfully.  "I'm  afraid  I 
can't  help  being  that." 

Ray  laughed  and  put  his  arm  in  hers.  "Mother, 
you  are  a  perfect  angel.  Let's  go  and  have 
some  tea." 

During  tea  they  discussed  Oxford. 

"I  do  hope  Francis  has  packed  all  your  things," 
said  Lady  Sheldon.  "He's  getting  so  old  now  and 
I'm  afraid  he  may  have  forgotten  something." 

Ray  smiled.  "It  doesn't  much  matter.  In  any 
case  I'll  have  a  look  round  myself  before  I  go." 

"I'll  come  too." 

"All  right." 

She  looked  at  Ray.  "It  does  seem  so  extraor- 
dinary that  you  should  be  going  to  Oxford,"  she 
said. 

"Why?" 

"I  don't  know  exactly,  but  it  does.  Don't  you 
remember  how  we  used  to  talk  about  it?" 

"Rather." 

"When  you  were  at  school,  it  used  to  seem  so 
marvellous.  And  then  when  you  were  in  the  army 
— but  I  promised  I  wouldn't  talk  about  that." 


ENTRY  1 1 

Ray's  face  had  darkened  for  a  moment. 

"But  still,  I  do  wish  you  weren't  going,  just 
from  my  own  silly,  selfish  point  of  view.  You 
seem  only  just  to  have  come  back.  I  often  wonder 
what  the  use  of  being  a  mother  is,  because  one 
never  seems  to  have  a  chance  of  seeing  one's  son. 
I  wish  in  some  ways  I'd  had  a  daughter." 

"Oh,  I  say,  really.  .  .  ." 

"No,  of  course  I  don't  mean  that.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  should  have  hated  to  have  a  daughter. 
I'm  sure  she  would  have  been  hideous,  and  we 
should  have  quarrelled  dreadfully.  And  then  she 
would  have  married — probably  some  horrid  creature 
with  no  manners.  I  do  hope  you  won't  get  married, 
Ray,  at  any  rate  for  simply  ages." 

Ray  shook  his  head.  "Nothing  would  depress 
me  more.  I  think  the  whole  idea's  beastly.  In 
any  case  I  should  hate  to  think  I  was  old  enough  to 
be  married.  Somehow,  I  know  that  if  I  ever  did 
marry,  I  should  feel  most  awfully  old." 

"Why?" 

"Well — all  the  responsibility,  and  the  fuss  and 
bother.  And  then — oh,  I  don't  know,  but  it  makes 
me  feel  sick." 

She  looked  at  him  gratefully.  "I  suppose  I'm 
very  wicked,  but  I  am  glad.  I  do  want  you  to  be 
what  you  are,  and  do  all  sorts  of  wonderful  things. 
I'm  sure  you  will,  at  Oxford." 

"What  sort  of  things?" 


12  PATCHWORK 

"Well,  there  must  be  heaps  of  things  that  you 
can  do.  I  don't  know  exactly  what  they  are — I 
wasn't  thinking  of  work,  really — or  rowing,  or  any- 
thing like  that — though  your  father  was  a  blue,"  she 
added,  with  a  little  touch  of  pride.  "I  was  thinking 
of  much  nicer  things — playing  the  piano,  and 
writing  poetry  and  making  speeches"  (Ray  had 
been  President  of  his  school  debating  society) — 
"you  must  know  what  I  mean." 

Ray  nodded.  Oxford,  even  though  he  had 
never  been  there,  as  an  undergraduate,  at  any  rate, 
seemed  to  hold  out  wonderful  possibilities.  He 
might  do  anything  at  Oxford.  .  .  . 

They  finished  tea,  and  went  upstairs.  The  rest 
of  the  evening  was  occupied  with  getting  his  things 
finally  straight.  Dinner  over,  Ray  played  the  piano 
for  a  little,  and  then  went  to  bed.  He  ought, 
perhaps,  in  his  excited  state  of  mind,  to  have  dreamt 
of  future  triumphs,  but  he  did  not  dream  at  all. 
He  had  time  enough  for  that  in  the  day. 

Ray  woke  up  early  the  next  morning.  As  he 
blinked  his  eyes  and  switched  on  the  light,  he 
wondered  why  he  had  wakened.  He  usually  slept 
long  after  he  had  been  called.  However,  it  was 
rather  delightful  to  lie  like  this  in  a  sort  of  semi- 
consciousness. He  could  feel  by  the  tip  of  his 
nose,  which  was  the  only  part  of  him  visible,  that 
the  room  was  extremely  cold.    Hence  it  was  all  the 


ENTRY  13 

nicer  to  be  so  warm  inside.  Contrast,  after  all,  was 
the  essence  of  real  enjoyment.  He  found  himself 
thinking  how  ripping  it  would  be  to  have  a  bed 
enclosed  in  a  glass  case  on  a  tiny  island  in  the 
middle  of  the  sea.  One  could  be  in  it  as  warm  as 
a  cat,  and  watch  the  racing  waves  outside  and  the 
rain  beating  pitilessly  against  the  glass.  If  ever  he 
had  masses  of  money  he  would  have  one  built.  .  .  . 

How  quiet  Curzon  Street  was!  It  seemed  to 
have  stopped  raining  outside.  In  any  case  he  could 
hear  nothing,  and  if  there  had  been  any  rain  it 
would  be  sure  to  patter  against  his  window.  He 
rather  wished  that  it  was  raining.  It  would  add  to 
the  sensuous  comfort  of  his  bed.  He  would  have 
loved  to  have  closed  his  eyes  and  listened  to  the 
steady  drip,  drip,  and  the  rattle  of  the  window 
blinds  in  the  wind.  At  school  once,  the  window 
had  been  left  open  over  his  bed  and  it  had  started  to 
snow.  He  remembered  what  fun  it  had  been  to 
draw  the  bedclothes  round  him  and  watch  the  little 
flakes  settle  on  the  red  counterpane  and  gradually 
melt  till  eventually  they  took  advantage  of  the 
privilege  and  penetrated  to  the  limbs  of  the 
occupant  of  the  bed.    However,  it  was  worth  it. 

He  drew  the  clothes  round  him  again,  and  dug 
a  tiny  pit  in  the  pillow  in  which  to  snuggle  his  nose, 
which  was  distressingly  cold.  How  he  managed  to 
breathe  under  such  circumstances  is  a  mystery. 
However,  he  at  once  fell  asleep  again,  and  did  not 


i4  PATCHWORK 

wake  till  two  hours  later,  and  then  only  by  the 
repeated  assertions  of  Francis  that  his  bath  would 
be  getting  cold. 

He  stretched  himself,  and  waited  for  the  im- 
pulse to  move  him  out  of  bed.  And  then  suddenly, 
with  a  shiver,  he  jumped  out,  detached  himself  of 
his  pyjamas,  and  hopped  into  his  bath. 

Lady  Sheldon  never  came  down  to  breakfast. 
To  have  breakfast  in  bed  was,  as  she  herself  ad- 
mitted, her  one  vice.  Ray,  in  some  ways,  was 
rather  glad.  He  hated  seeing  anybody,  even  his 
mother,  at  breakfast,  and  considered  that  it  was  a 
meal  to  be  eaten  strictly  in  private.  Besides,  he 
liked  to  read  the  papers,  which  were  so  useful  for 
telling  one  what  the  date  was.  To-day  was  Wed- 
nesday, January  15th.  Term  started  the  day  after 
to-morrow.  He  was  glad  he  was  going  up  early. 
It  would  give  him  a  certain  amount  of  time  to  settle 
down. 

He  went  upstairs  and  into  his  mother's  dark 
bedroom  to  say  good-bye. 

"Good-bye,  Ray  dear,"  she  said.  "I  do  hope 
you'll  like  it.  I  do  wish  you  weren't  going.  You 
can  always  come  away  if  you  don't  want  to  stop — 
and  I  shall  probably  come  up  as  soon  as  you're 
settled." 

"Of  course  you  will.    I'm  sure  it  ought  to  be 


ENTRY  15 

priceless.    I'll  send  you  a  line  to-night  to  say  how 
I  get  on." 

"Yes,  please  do.    Good-bye,  Ray." 

He  bent  down  and  gave  her  a  kiss. 

At  Paddington  Ray  looked  round  to  see  if  there 
was  anybody  he  knew  who  was  going  to  Oxford  on 
that  day.  Apparently  there  was  not.  He  was 
rather  disappointed,  as  he  did  not  particularly  want 
to  have  to  make  his  entry  into  Balliol  alone.  He 
wondered  rather  apprehensively  if  his  first  term  at 
Oxford  really  would  be  so  different  from  his  first 
term  at  school.  Of  course  he  would  have  rooms  of 
his  own,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  he  wouldn't 
have  to  do  any  work — but  still  there  might  be  a 
lot  of  senior  people  who  would  fuss  round  and  ask 
him  to  play  games,  and  treat  him  like  a  fresher. 
However,  he  comforted  himself  by  the  thought  that 
after  all,  in  this  first  term  after  the  Armistice, 
nearly  every  one  would  be  a  fresher.  So  he  didn't 
care. 

The  train  began  to  move  off.  Suddenly  the 
door  was  flung  open  and  a  suit  case,  followed  by  a 
young  officer,  hurled  themselves  precipitately  into 
the  carriage. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry,"  began  the  newcomer,  pant- 
ing. Then  he  dropped  the  suit  case.  "Raymond 
Sheldon,  by  all  that's  wonderful ! " 


1 6  PATCHWORK 

"Steele!  How  perfectly  amazing!  Is  the  door 
shut?" 

They  both  laughed. 

"Yes,  it  is,"  said  Steele,  trying  it.  "I  had  a 
fearful  rush  to  get  in." 

"I  noticed  that,"  said  Ray.  "But  what  are  you 
doing  here?" 

"I'm  going  to  Oxford." 

"Oxford!  So  am  I.  I  say,  this  is  great.  You're 
not  going  up  to  the  'Varsity,  are  you?" 

Steele  nodded. 

Ray  sat  down  and  threw  his  hat  in  the  air. 
"But  why  didn't  you  let  me  know?  I'm  going 
too.  We're  both  going.  Every  one's  going.  Here, 
open  the  window  and  let's  get  some  fresh  air." 

Steele  did  so. 

"But  how  could  I  let  you  know?  I  didn't 
know  where  you  were." 

"No,  that's  true.  But  I've  been  in  London 
ever  since  the  Armistice.  I  should  have  thought 
we  might  have  met  somewhere." 

"I've  only  just  got  back  from  Germany, 
though." 

"Germany!     Then  you  are  still  in  the  army?" 

Steele  bowed. 

"Well,  how  can  you  come  to  Oxford  then?" 

"I  shall  be  demobilised  in  about  a  week." 

"Oh,  I  see.  By  the  way,  what  College  are  you 
going  to?" 


ENTRY  17 

"Balliol." 

Ray  leaned  back  and  beat  a  tattoo  on  the 
opposite  seat  with  his  heels. 

"Oh,  I  say,  do  shake  my  hand  or  do  some- 
thing. I'm  for  Balliol  too.  Thank  the  Lord  I 
got  into  this  carriage.  We'll  be  able  to  do  every- 
thing together.  It's  your  first  term  I  suppose, 
isn't  it?" 

"Oh  yes,  rather." 

"It's  mine,  too.    I  don't  suppose  that  matters?" 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"Well — what  I  mean  is,  d'you  think  we'll  be 
treated  like  freshers?" 

"I  don't  know  how  freshers  are  treated.  But 
nearly  everybody's  bound  to  be  a  fresher  this  term. 
In  any  case  everything  will  proably  be  in  a  God- 
forsaken muddle,  so  there's  no  need  to  worry." 

"No,  I  suppose  there  isn't." 

They  talked  at  random  of  the  life  into  which 
they  were  about  to  plunge.  Ray  was  delighted  to 
see  Steele  again.  He  noticed  sympathetically  that 
he  seemed  much  older  than  when  they  had  last  met, 
two  years  ago.  His  thin,  sharp-featured  face  was 
lined  and  pale.  On  his  breast  he  wore  a  Military 
Cross  and  a  Mons  Medal. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  had  known  each  other 
only  for  a  very  short  time.  Their  first  encounter 
had  been  at  a  gas  course  in  Surrey  during  the  latter 
part  of  1917,  and  as  they  had  been  the  only  two 


1 8  PATCHWORK 

intelligent  people  on  the  course,  they  had  naturally 
drifted  together.  However,  their  friendship  had 
been  far  more  than  a  mere  pis  aller.  They  had 
each  of  them  displayed  qualities  which  the  other 
admired.  At  the  course  it  had  been  the  custom  for 
the  officers  to  take  turns  at  lecturing  on  gas.  Ray 
had  delivered  a  marvellous,  and  highly  artificial 
lecture  on  gas  as  it  appeared  to  him.  He  had 
ransacked  the  huts  for  coloured  chalks,  to  draw 
huge  Whistler  pictures  on  the  blackboard,  of  yellow 
gas  sweeping  over  desolate  plains  strewn  with  blood- 
red  corpses  (or  rather,  pale  pink  ones,  for  there  was 
no  red  chalk).  He  had  invested  gas  with  poetical 
properties.  He  had  floated  on  clouds  of  gaseous 
eloquence.  He  had  made  of  a  gas  mask  a  grotesque 
disguise,  savouring  of  the  Grand  Guignol. 

Steele,  who  admired  genius  in  any  form,  had 
been  completely  captivated  by  this  performance. 
However,  when  it  came  to  his  turn  to  lecture,  he 
had  performed  a  feat  no  less  astonishing  than  Ray's. 
He  had  discovered  the  philosophy  of  gas.  He  had 
questioned  whether  gas  was,  in  the  Platonic  sense, 
the  ultimate  good,  or  rather  the  ultimate  evil.  Be- 
fore red-faced  and  bemedalled  majors  he  had  waxed 
eloquent  over  the  moral  qualities  of  gas.  He  had 
evolved  from  gas  an  entirely  new  system  of  ethics. 
After  all,  as  Ray  had  remarked,  gas  was  the  usual 
origin  of  ethical  systems.  At  any  rate,  they  both 
got  "distinction,"  and  parted  firm  friends. 


ENTRY  19 

And  now,  here  they  were,  the  war  over,  on  the 
way  to  Oxford!  It  was  really  astonishing.  Ray 
lay  back  and  looked  out  of  the  window.  Deep 
tilted  meadows,  their  wintry  green  washed  vivid  by 
the  rain,  slid  by  the  windows,  radiant  in  the  sun. 
The  pools  in  the  fields  were  so  many  sheets  of 
silver.  Telegraph  poles  flashed  past,  gloriously 
black  and  straight  against  a  sky  of  blue  enamel. 

Steele  seemed  to  catch  his  mood. 

"Full  many  a  glorious  morning  hav.e  I  seen 
Flatter  the  mountain  tops  with  sovereign  eye." 

Ray  smiled  and  finished  the  quotation — 

"Kissing  with  golden  face  the  meadows  green 
Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy." 

The  rhythm  of  the  train  played  a  boisterous 
accompaniment  to  the  music  of  the  words. 

"Pale  streams,"  repeated  Ray  slowly,  his  eyes 
on  the  many-watered  fields  through  which  they  were 
passing.  "My  God — it's  wonderful.  Don't  you 
feel  fearfully  happy?" 

Steele  nodded. 

They  talked,  on  and  on,  delightful  intimate  talk, 
such  as  can  only  be  accomplished  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  an  orchestra  or  a  train.  Reading  passed 
by,  a  red  mass  looming  on  the  left.  Clouds  came 
over  the  sun,  but  were  blown  away  again  by  the 


20  PATCHWORK 

time  they  reached  Radley.  After  Radley,  a  final 
spurt,  and  then  the  train  gradually  slowed  down. 

Ray  took  Steele's  arm. 

"Look!" 

They  were  nearing  the  station,  and  for  a  brief 
moment  Oxford  lay  before  them. 

Spire  after  spire  cut  clear  against  the  sky.  Grey 
domes  and  steeples  rose  superbly  over  the  huddled 
dove-coloured  roofs.  Dappled  with  gold,  towers 
and  pinnacles  lay  dreaming  in  the  sun. 


CHAPTER  II 

INITIATION 

NEVER  had  Oxford  seemed  so  superb  as  on 
that  brilliant  January  morning.  Ray  already 
knew  the  city  a  little,  because  he  had  been  up  to 
Balliol  for  a  fortnight  in  the  winter  of  1916,  to  try 
for  an  exhibition  in  modern  history,  which  he  had 
failed  to  get.  Steele  too  had  been  initiated,  some- 
what more  successfully,  into  the  mysteries  of 
Oxford,  when  he  had  carried  off  the  senior  classical 
scholarship  in  1914.  But  for  both  of  them  there 
was  everything  to  learn. 

They  climbed  into  one  of  a  crowd  of  those 
hansom  cabs  which  Oxford  has  retained  almost  as 
affectionately  as  she  clung  to  her  compulsory  Greek- 
There  seemed  to  be  something  peculiarly  fitting  in 
this  mode  of  transport.  It  was  like  going  back  to 
the  nineties.  They  jingled  along,  dipping  swallow- 
like under  the  railway  bridge,  skimming  lightly  past 
Worcester,  down  the  bald  expanse  of  Beaumont 
Street,  and  through  the  sudden  rush  of  traffic  in  the 
Corn  till  they  drew  up  at  Balliol. 

And  there,  for  a  time,  they  parted.  Steele  had 
promised  to  lunch  with  a  man  at  the  House.     Ray 

21 


22  PATCHWORK 

decided  that  after  he  had  unpacked  he  would  lunch 
by  himself  and  then  see  what  happened. 

He  asked  the  porter  if  his  things  had  all  come. 

"Mr.  Sheldon,  sir?  Yes,  sir.  First  quad- 
rangle, number  six  staircase,  second  floor."  He 
indicated  the  direction  and  Ray  noticed  how  like  he 
was  to  a  now  extinct  type  of  Conservative  states- 
man. He  also  wondered  if  the  rather  nondescript 
group  of  undergraduates  who  clustered  round  the 
notice-boards  were  freshers  or  pre-war  men.  They 
all  had  on  exactly  the  same  clothes — grey  flannel 
trousers  and  Norfolk  jackets  with  leather  buttons. 
Ray  decided  that,  whatever  happened,  and  even  if 
it  meant  constant  "debagging,"  he  would  never 
appear  in  public  in  a  costume  of  that  description. 

He  went  up  to  his  rooms.  On  the  stairs  he 
met  a  watery-eyed  man  of  about  fifty,  almost  com- 
pletely hidden  behind  a  huge  and  rather  dirty  green 
apron.  They  surveyed  each  other  with  mutual 
distrust. 

"Are  you  my  scout?"  said  Ray,  rather 
apologetically. 

"Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  beery  one. 

"Er — what  is  your  name?"  asked  Ray. 

"Landsdowne,  sir.  You're  Mr.  Sheldon,  I 
expect?" 

Ray  nodded.  "I  suppose  you  have  to  look 
after  some  other  people  besides  me?" 

"Twelve  gentlemen,  sir." 


INITIATION  23 

"Good  Lord!     That's  rather  a  lot,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes,  sir.  It  is  a  lot.  A  great  deal  'arder 
worked  we  are,  than  wot  we  used  to  be.  You 
see,"  he  said  confidentially,  "men  is  'ard  to  get 
now." 

Ray  agreed,  and  looked  towards  his  door. 

"But  I've  done  what  I  could  for  you,  sir." 
Landsdowne  shuffled  into  the  room.  "There's  a 
nice  fire  I've  got  for  you,  only  you'll  'ave  to  be 
careful  with  coals.  Only  allowed  three  of  them 
scuttles  a  week." 

"Oh  I  say,"  said  Ray.  This  wasn't  a  bit  like 
"Sinister  Street." 

"Sorry,  sir,  but  them's  the  Bursar's  orders. 
Only  three  scuttles  for  each  gentleman.  'Tain't 
like  wot  it  used  to  be,"  he  said.  "You  could  'ave 
set  the  chimney  on  fire  every  night  afore  the  war 
if  you'd  wanted.  Some  of  my  young  gentlemen 
did,  once  or  twice,"  he  added,  chortling  at  the 
memory  of  past  conflagrations. 

Ray  looked  at  him  rather  disconsolately. 

"  'Owever,  sir,  I  dare  say  you'll  be  comfortable 
enough.  I  don't  know  if  this  is  'ow  you  want  your 
things  arranged,  but  we've  got  'em  in  some'ow. 
Bit  of  a  job  doing  it,  too,  it  was.  That  piano  'ad  to 
come  in  by  the  window." 

"Oh,  I  expect  I  shall  be  all  right,"  said  Ray. 
"By  the  way,  can  I  have  tea  here  to-day?" 

"Yes,  sir.    I've  got  your  tea  for  you  from  the 


24  PATCHWORK 

stores.  You'll  find  all  that  sort  o'  thing  in  this 
cupboard."  He  indicated  the  Jacobean  sideboard, 
and  shuffled  lugubriously  out  of  the  room. 

Ray  sat  down  in  front  of  the  fire.  Somehow, 
this  was  not  quite  what  he  had  expected.  He  had 
thought  vaguely  of  Oxford  as  a  place  where  every- 
thing would  be  as  it  always  had  been,  where  things 
like  meat  coupons  and  coal  rations  would  be  for- 
gotten. It  was  evidently  otherwise.  However, 
probably  that  would  only  be  temporary,  and  in  any 
case  he  would  forget  it  when  the  other  people  came 
up.  As  it  was,  the  rather  deserted  aspect  of  the 
College  made  such  minor  inconveniences  more 
noticeable  than  they  would  ordinarily  be. 

He  went  in  to  see  what  sort  of  bedroom  they 
had  given  him.  It  wasn't  so  bad — rather  dusty, 
perhaps,  and  a  bit  small,  but  he  supposed  they 
couldn't  help  that.  And  anyway,  it  had  rather  a 
charming  view.  The  high  windows  looked  on  to 
Broad  Street,  and  faced  towards  the  sun.  Opposite 
him,  in  the  shadow,  was  a  row  of  irregular  old 
houses,  huddling  together  as  though  they  were 
laughing  at  something.  He  opened  the  window 
and  looked  down  on  the  traffic  beneath.  The  street 
was  so  broad  that  the  people  in  it  seemed  to  float 
across.  There  were  not  many  undergraduates 
about  yet. 

He  closed  the  window  and  started  to  unpack. 
There  was  something  reassuring  and  comfortable 


INITIATION  25 

in  the  pyjamas  which  nestled  neatly  on  top  of 
his  trunk.  At  any  rate  this  trunk  was  packed  full 
of  his  own  things.  There  was  no  need  to  feel 
lonely  now.  He  unwrapped  a  pair  of  patent  leather 
shoes  from  their  tissue  paper,  and  placed  them 
affectionately  on  the  chest  of  drawers.  They  were 
the  first  of  a  regular  battalion  of  shoes,  and  by  the 
time  everything  was  out — dressing-gown  hung 
behind  the  door,  coats  hung  up  in  the  dark  cup- 
board, silver  brushes  sparkling  on  the  window 
ledge,  and  even  a  pink  cake  of  soap  lying  com- 
placently on  the  washstand — he  felt  that  at  any  rate 
he  had  a  pied  a  terre,  and  that  was  as  much  as 
at  present  he  had  any  right  to  expect. 

He  went  back  into  his  sitting-room.  Really  it 
might  be  made  rather  charming.  The  only  difficulty 
was  that  damned  window  in  the  corner  which  was 
almost  a  room  in  itself,  and  which  seemed  to  be  at 
once  the  target  and  the  origin  of  every  draught. 
He  decided  that  he  would  curtain  it  off  and  put  a 
bookshelf  in  it,  and  a  large  table,  and  use  it  simply 
as  a  retreat  in  which  to  work.  He  supposed  he 
would  have  to  do  a  certain  amount  of  work,  and 
when  the  curtains  were  drawn  nobody  would  know 
he  was  inside. 

The  next  half-hour  was  spent  in  getting  the 
pictures  on  the  walls.  Over  the  mantelpiece  he 
hung  two  Russian  ballet  designs  of  his  own,  bold 
splashes  of  blue  and  silver  which  lit  up  delightfully 


26  PATCHWORK 

the  cool  grey  walls.  Then  there  were  two  Medici 
Corots,  some  Russian  tapestry,  and  some  blue  china. 
The  latter  he  decided  he  would  arrange  on  the  side- 
board. All  he  wanted  now  were  some  cushions, 
which  he  thought  must  be  quite  modern,  silver  and 
blue,  and  some  lampshades. 

However,  he  was  not  altogether  satisfied  with 
his  rooms.  He  had  dreamed  of  age-stained  panels, 
and  windows  giving  onto  a  slow  river;  deep  book- 
shelves in  which  reverently  he  might  have  placed 
rare  editions  of  Walter  Pater  and  exquisitely  bound 
copies  of  the  Decameron.  A  room  in  which  he 
might  have  cloistered  himself,  and  stained  the  half- 
light  with  magnificent  and  grand  dreams.  A  room 
in  which  all  that  was  superb  and  splendid  in  Oxford 
would  have  passed,  shadowy  and  shod  with  silver, 
before  him.  .  .  . 

But  all  that  belonged  to  the  Oxford  that  had  gone. 

He  sighed,  and  scribbled  a  hasty  letter  to  his 
mother  and  then  looked  at  his  watch. 

"Good  Lord,  it's  a  quarter  to  two."  He  took 
up  his  hat  from  the  sofa,  and  then  threw  it  down. 
People  didn't  wear  hats  in  Oxford.  Thank  the 
Lord  for  that!  Thank  the  Lord  for  a  good  many 
other  things  too!  He  whistled  a  tune  and  clattered 
cheerfully  down  the  open  stairs.  .  .  . 

The  next  few  hours  passed  in  a  whirl.  Ray 
found  that  not  only  had  he  been  mistaken  when  he 
had  thought  that  Oxford  was  deserted,  but  that  he 


INITIATION  27 

met  many  people  whose  very  existence  he  had 
forgotten.  It  was  really  rather  remarkable,  and 
certainly  not  unpleasant,  to  meet  so  many  people 
in  this  way — boys  he  had  known  at  school,  now 
grown  up  and  adorned  with  little  fair  moustaches, 
men  he  had  known  in  the  army,  some  of  them  of 
very  much  higher  rank  than  he  had  ever  attained. 
It  was  great  fun  to  be  particularly  condescending 
to  the  latter. 

He  met  his  late  second-in-command  in  the  High. 
How  different  he  looked  now  he  had  discarded  his 
brass  hat  and  his  "plus  fours"!  Ray  gave  him  a 
tired  bow,  whereas  before  he  would  have  been 
forced  to  give  him  a  quivering  salute,  and  asked  him 
to  come  to  lunch,  "some  day."  After  all  he  was 
only  a  fresher  too. 

He  walked  at  random  through  the  streets.  How 
fascinating  all  the  bookshops  looked!  He  would 
make  a  complete  tour  of  them  soon.  And  then 
what  innumerable  cigarette  shops  there  were  every- 
where, every  description  of  cigarette,  every  kind  of 
pipe,  from  an  elaborate  hookah  with  brass  bells  on 
top  to  a  long  thin-stemmed  pipe  of  white  clay. 
He  went  into  Colin  Lunn's  and  bought  some 
Egyptian  cigarettes  tipped  with  real  violet  leaves. 
After  all,  there  wasn't  any  harm  in  being  a  little 
decadent  to  begin  with. 

By  that  time,  it  was  time  for  tea,  and  he  went 
back  to  Balliol.    Steele  met  him  in  the  Lodge. 


28  PATCHWORK 

They  greeted  each  other  warmly. 

"Come  and  have  some  tea,"  said  Ray. 

"Thanks  awfully.     I  should  love  to." 

They  clambered  up  the  stone  stairs. 

"I  say,  this  is  a  priceless  room." 

Ray  smiled.  "Wait  till  you  see  it  in  a  day  or 
two.     It  isn't  nearly  finished  yet." 

"Well,  it's  jolly  nice  now.  Ten  times  nicer 
than  mine.  They've  put  me  in  a  place  which  is 
about  the  size  of  an  average  bathroom.  I  went  to 
the  Dean  about  it  and  tried  to  get  a  move,  but  it 
was  no  good." 

Ray  expressed  his  sympathy.  He  was,  however, 
at  present  too  engaged  in  the  novel  experience  of 
making  his  own  tea  in  his  own  rooms  for  the  first 
time,  to  pay  much  attention  to  what  Steele  was 
saying. 

He  felt  a  sense  of  proprietorship  over  every- 
thing, even  the  teacups  splashed  with  crimson  and 
rimmed  with  blue,  and  the  silver  teapot  specially 
polished  for  him  by  his  scout,  and  filled  with  tea 
from  the  stores.  Everything  that  he  touched  was 
his  own,  to  do  with  as  he  liked.  He  felt  inclined 
to  ask  everybody  in  Oxford  to  tea,  to  give  them 
all  cigarettes,  to  play  the  piano  to  the  whole  of 
Balliol.  .  .  . 

He  jumped  up,  and  still  munching  some  anchovy 
toast,  played  the  opening  bars  of  Schumann's 
"Carnival." 


INITIATION  29 

"That's  what  Oxford's  got  to  be,"  said  Ray, 
"just  Carnival  and  nothing  else."  He  sat  down 
again. 

After  tea,  Ray  decided  that  he  would  go  and 
see  the  Dean. 

"I  want  to  get  settled  as  soon  as  I  can,  and  it's 
impossible  to  do  that  till  I  know  what  work  I've 
got  to  do." 

Steele  nodded,  and  they  went  downstairs. 

"See  you  in  Hall?"  asked  Ray. 

"Yes,  rather.  You'd  better  come  round  to  my 
rooms  at  about  twenty  past." 

"All  right." 

Ray  examined  the  black  plate  at  the  bottom  of 
the  staircase  at  which  he  had  arrived.  Yes,  For- 
tescue  was  in  this  block.  He  wondered  if  he  ought 
to  have  put  on  a  gown  to  see  him.  However,  it 
probably  didn't  matter  much,  because  term  hadn't 
started  yet.     So  he  went  up. 

John  Fortescue,  commonly  known  as  Tugly,  was 
in  every  way  one  of  the  most  charming  people  in 
Oxford.  He  was  probably  about  fifty,  but  some- 
how his  face  defied  age  in  a  way  which  was  a  per- 
petual mystery  to  the  average  undergraduate. 
Pink  cheeked  and  with  sparkling  eyes,  he  gave  the 
appearance  of  a  cherubic  fawn  which  had,  in  a 
moment  of  naughtiness  during  an  otherwise  blame- 
less life,  escaped  from  the  green  retreats  of  Chorley 
Wood.    Perhaps  the  most  elusive  thing  about  him 


3o  PATCHWORK 

was  his  hair.  It  certainly  was  not  grey  and  it 
could  not  be  described  as  brown.  It  sometimes 
seemed  to  hanker  after  yellow,  and  here  and  there 
were  shadows  of  silver,  but  en  masse  it  remained 
unique. 

Tugly  was,  in  many  ways,  the  social  centre  of 
Oxford  life.  He  was  certainly,  in  more  ways  than 
one,  the  father  of  Balliol.  Although  he  probably 
tutored  more  men  than  any  other  don  in  Oxford, 
there  was  as  little  of  the  don  about  him  as  it  is 
possible  to  conceive.  He  resented,  more  than  his 
amiable  features  were  capable  of  showing,  being 
called  "sir."  Ray  had  made  this  mistake  when  he 
had  first  met  him  in  1916,  and  had  met  with  a  firm 
reproof,  after  which  they  were  firm  friends,  and 
even  occasional  correspondents. 

Tugly's  rooms  were  as  remarkable  as  himself. 
From  ceiling  to  floor  the  walls  were  covered  with 
photographs  of  undergraduates,  past,  present  and 
occasionally  future.  No  human  being,  unless  it  be 
the  aboriginal  negro,  is  so  fond  of  being  photo- 
graphed as  the  undergraduate,  and  the  majority  of 
such  photographs  seemed  to  find  their  way  to 
Tugly's  rooms.  There  were  artistic  profiles,  in- 
teresting three-quarter  views,  stern  full  faces. 
There  were  photos  in  which  the  face  unfortunately 
seemed  about  to  be  hidden  by  a  large  property 
cloud,  and  photos  in  which,  equally  unfortunately, 


INITIATION  31 

no  clouds,  property  or  otherwise,  were  present. 
There  were  groups,  in  which  three  or  four  self-con- 
scious young  men  frowned  at  the  world  as  though 
life  were,  as  far  as  they  were  concerned,  a  very 
hopeless  business,  and  groups  in  which,  from  the 
peculiarly  happy  expression  on  the  faces  of  the 
sitters,  it  was  probably  safe  to  conclude  that  the 
photographer  had  just  told  them  a  story  which 
was  not  quite  proper. 

The  rest  of  the  room  which  was  not  occupied  by 
photographs  was  usually  taken  up  by  papers  and 
letters.  As  these  were  apparently  public  property, 
and  as  Tugly  did  not  appear  to  be  in,  Ray  thought 
it  might  be  permissible  to  read  some  of  them  while 
he  was  waiting.  They  were,  on  the  whole,  unin- 
teresting. "Dear  Sir,"  "Dear  Tugly,"  "My  dear 
Tugly,"  "Dearest  Tugly,"  there  was  even  one  ad- 
dressed to  "Dear  Mr.  Tugly,"  so  universal  had 
John  Fortescue's  nickname  become.  Apart  from 
the  letters,  there  were  bills,  little  heaps  of  snap- 
shots, college  regulations,  university  statutes,  and 
piles  of  essays  from  the  latest  scholarship  examina- 
tion. These  Ray  proceeded  to  examine.  What  a 
positively  indecent  knowledge  of  Queen  Anne  was 
possessed  by  this  creature  of  the  spidery  caligraphy ! 
What  a  horribly  mature  historical  style  he  pos- 
sessed! He  was  quite  certain  that  this  one,  at  any 
rate,  would  get  a  scholarship. 


32  PATCHWORK 

He  was  turning  to  look  at  another  when  Tugly 
came  in,  armed  with  huge  tomes  on  the  life  of 
Gregory  VII.,  bound  in  scarlet  leather. 

"Ah — Ray — this  is  nice."  He  put  the  books 
down.    "Have  you  just  arrived?" 

"Yes,  I  got  here  this  morning." 

"And  how  are  you  feeling?  Sit  down,  and 
smoke  and  do  all  that  sort  of  thing.  I'm  afraid 
this  fire's  like  the  rest  of  the  room — rather  depress- 
ing." He  gave  it  a  poke,  and  sat  down  on  the 
stool  in  front  with  his  hands  clasping  his  knees,  and 
looked  at  Ray  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye. 

"You  seem  to  look  very  flourishing,"  said  Tugly. 

"Do  I?" 

They  both  laughed. 

"What  are  you  giggling  about?"  said  Tugly, 
putting  his  hand  on  Ray's  knee. 

Ray  sighed.  "Oh,  I  don't  know,  Tugly — by 
the  way,  may  I  call  you  that?"  Tugly  nodded 
gravely.  "I  was  only  thinking  how  extraordinarily 
pleasant  it  was  to  be  here.  How  long  is  it  since 
I've  seen  you?" 

"  '16,  wasn't  it?  You  only  have  seen  me  once, 
you  know.  And  that  was  when  you  came  up  to  get 
a  scholarship." 

"Which  I  didn't  get." 

"Which  you  didn't  get." 

"All  right,"  laughed  Ray,  "you  needn't  rub  it 
in.    It  was  only  just  because  it  happened  to  be 


INITIATION  33 

Balliol.  I'm  sure  I  could  have  got  one  anywhere 
else." 

"I'm  glad  to  see  you've  got  the  College  spirit 
already,"  said  Tugly. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  it  is  a  good  thing.  D'you  think 
Balliol 's  going  to  be  nice,  Tugly?" 

"How  do  you  mean  'nice'?" 

"Well,  do  you  think  I  shall  like  it?" 

"Oh,  you?     Of  course,  that's  another  matter." 

"No,  but  really?" 

"Of  course  you'll  like  it.  You're  made  for  Ox- 
ford. And  anyway  it  rather  depends  what  you 
want  to  do.  What  do  you  want  to  do,  by  the 
way?" 

"Is  this  serious?"  sighed  Ray. 

"Terribly." 

"I  mean,  is  it  business?" 

"Of  course." 

Ray  kicked  the  stool.  "It's  rather  a  job  having 
to  think  after  two  years  of  mental  stagnation." 

"Oh  no,  it  won't  be.  You'll  find  things  much 
easier  than  you  expect.  I  think  lots  of  people  like 
you  are  rather  better  for  a  certain  amount  of  slack 
time." 

Ray  shook  his  head. 

"Oh  yes,  they  are,"  repeated  Tugly.  "It's  like 
learning  to  skate  in  the  summer.  What  are  you 
going  to  do?" 

"In  work?" 


34  PATCHWORK 

Tugly  nodded. 

"Have  I  got  to  work?" 

"My  dear  Ray — from  you!" 

Ray  laughed.    "Well,  what  do  you  advise?" 

"Weren't  you  doing  history  before?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  go  on  with  that?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  Somehow  the  idea  doesn't 
appeal  to  me  awfully.  I  hate  history.  It's  so  ap- 
palling to  have  to  learn  a  lot  of  dull  rot  when  such 
infinitely  more  exciting  things  are  happening  to- 
day." 

"Do  you  think  infinitely  more  exciting  things  are 
happening?  I  think,  personally,  that  they're  mere- 
ly depressing  and  dull.  Encyclical  councils  were 
far  more  interesting  than  the  peace  conference. 
And  then  think  of  the  delightful  clothes  that  people 
used  to  wear." 

"Yes;  there's  something  in  that,  certainly." 

Tugly  smiled  infectiously.  "I  thought  that  would 
get  you,"  he  said,  looking  at  Ray. 

"But  then  history  isn't  all  clothes.  It  would  be 
worth  reading  about  if  it  were.  But  you  can't  get 
an  entirely  sartorial  degree,  can  you?" 

"Not  entirely.  But,  seriously,  what  do  you  want 
to  do?" 

"That's  the  trouble.  I  really  don't  know.  I  feel 
I  want  to  do  something  new — that's  all.    And  some- 


INITIATION  3S 

thing  useful.  Couldn't  I  do  French  and  Italian,  or 
something  like  that?" 

"You  could.  But  I  shouldn't  advise  it  myself. 
You  speak  French  far  too  well  for  an  Englishman 
already,  and  you'd  learn  more  Italian  in  a  month  in 
Italy  than  you'd  ever  pick  up  in  Oxford." 

"Well,  English  literature?" 

"Coward!" 

"Why  coward?" 

"Because  it's  the  thing  you'd  do  so  much  more 
easily  than  anything  else.  Much  better  read  some- 
thing which  you  don't  feel  called  to.  That's  educa- 
tion— doing  things  you  don't  want  to." 

"I  suppose  really  I  ought  to  do  law." 

"Are  you  going  to  be  a  barrister?" 

"My  relations  want  me  to  be." 

"Do  you  want  to  be?" 

"Not  fearfully." 

"Then  I  shouldn't.  In  any  case  the  law  school 
here's  pretty  feeble  compared  to  the  history  school. 
Besides,  law  isn't  an  education." 

Ray  sighed.  Apparently  there  seemed  no  way 
out  of  doing  history.  Somehow  the  idea  did  not  in 
the  least  appeal  to  him.  He  saw  himself  re-opening 
dull  old  schoolbooks,  renewing  his  acquaintance  with 
Queen  Elizabeth — a  woman  to  whom  he  would 
never  willingly  have  been  introduced — meeting  once 
more  the  warts  and  prudery  of  Oliver  Cromwell, 


3  6  PATCHWORK 

hearing  once  again  the  faint  literary  echoes  of  for- 
gotten wars,  the  intonation  of  bygone  orators,  dron- 
ing down  the  centuries. 

However,  he  supposed  he  had  better  do  history. 
Tugly  seemed  to  think  so,  and  Tugly  probably  knew 
best. 

They  talked  at  random.  Apparently  Oxford  was 
going  to  be  crowded  out.  Balliol  itself  would  be  full 
to  overflowing — many  people  were  coming  up  whom 
Ray  had  known  in  the  past.  Of  course  it  was  all 
very  exciting,  but  it  was  also  going  to  be  very  dif- 
ficult. Food,  coal,  light,  servants — all  these  were 
equally  hard  to  obtain,  and  the  undergraduate's  life 
was  not  going  to  be  nearly  as  easy  as  it  had  been  in 
the  past. 

As  Ray  came  away  from  Tugly 's  rooms  he  won- 
ered  if  he  was  really  going  to  be  so  happy  in  Oxford 
as  he  had  imagined.  On  the  whole  he  was  well 
enough  pleased,  and  of  course  things  hadn't  got  go- 
ing yet. 

It  was  nearly  time  for  Hall,  and  he  went  across 
to  Steele's  rooms.  The  quad  was  scattered  with 
groups  of  undergraduates  laughing  and  talking. 
He  pushed  his  way  through  one  of  the  groups  and 
ran  up  the  stone  stairs.  A.  N.  STEELE.  Yes,  this 
was  the  room.    He  opened  the  door. 

Steele  looked  up  from  behind  a  huge  packing-case 
which  was  almost  as  tall  as  himself. 

"Hullo,  is  it  time  for  Hall?" 


INITIATION  37 

"Almost — about  five  minutes,  I  think.  I  say,  this 
room's  rather  a  wash-out,  isn't  it?" 

Steele  laughed.  "It  is  pretty  filthy.  But  it 
won't  be  so  bad  when  I  get  my  things  straight.  I 
don't  know  what  these  pictures  will  look  like  in 
here,  but  they'll  have  to  go  up."  He  leant  into  the 
packing-case  again  and  drew  out  some  Nevinson 
woodcuts,  still  covered  with  sawdust. 

"What  are  they?"  said  Ray.  "Oh,  Nevinson." 
He  glanced  at  the  angular  vivid  lines  of  the  draw- 
ings, mostly  of  scenes  in  France,  and  shivered. 

"Don't  you  like  them?"  Steele  asked. 

"Well,  of  course  they're  amazingly  clever.  But 
they're  the  last  things  I  should  have  had  in  Oxford." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  just  memories  of  things  I'd  prefer  to  forget." 
He  put  the  pictures  down  on  the  table. 

Steele  nodded  absently.  "I  think  they'd  better  be 
hung  rather  high." 

"Very  high  indeed,  I  suggest." 

"It'll  give  a  bit  of  height  to  the  room,  you  see." 

Ray  laughed.    They  made  their  way  into  Hall. 

In  Hall  Ray,  for  the  first  time,  felt  really  at  home. 
Chance  had  thrown  him  into  the  centre  of  a  vocifer- 
ous group  of  very  pleasant  young  men,  mostly  old 
Etonians  and  Wykehamists,  some  of  whom  he  had 
already  met  in  the  Brigade. 

He  was  greeted  with  effusion.  Everybody  talked 
at  the  top  of  their  voice,  old  nicknames  were  re- 


3  8  PATCHWORK 

called,  and  the  rest  of  the  undergraduates  were  criti- 
cised as  "rather  a  piffling  lot." 

"Of  course,  that's  the  worst  of  Balliol,"  said  a 
languid  youth  next  to  him,  who  presented  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  aesthetic  Owen  Nares,  and  who  had 
been  nicknamed  "The  Geisha"  at  Bushey,  "one  has 
to  put  up  with  so  many  peculiar  people." 

Ray  turned  to  him.    "How?" 

"Well,  Manchester  Grammar  School  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing.  Of  course  they're  fearfully  clever, 
but  they're  rather  impossible  in  some  ways.  Most 
of  our  people  have  gone  to  the  House.  They  al- 
ways say  Balliol's  full  of  niggers.  .  .  ."  His  eyes 
rested  meaningly  on  a  very  swarthy  Indian  who  had 
somehow  got  into  their  circle,  and  who  was  conse- 
quently eating  with  particular  eloquence. 

"My  dear  Arthur,  don't  be  so  horrid,"  said  Ray. 
He  turned  to  the  Indian  and  began  a  conversation. 
It  was  not  easy  to  talk  to  him,  because  his  sole  in- 
terest seemed,  apart  from  his  soup,  to  be  centred 
in  Lord  Cromer,  which  he  pronounced  Lewd 
Cromer.  So  Ray  gave  up  the  attempt,  not,  how- 
ever, without  the  feeling  that  he  had  done  at  any 
rate  one  kind  action  that  day. 

Balliol  Hall  is  not  a  particularly  inspiring  build- 
ing, in  spite  of  its  great  size.  However,  filled  with 
undergraduates,  it  certainly  presented  an  ani- 
mated appearance  to-night.  There  was  an  attrac- 
tion too  about  the  pictures  which  glared  or  smirked 


INITIATION  39 

from  the  walls — bishops  in  sleeves  of  blue-white 
lawn,  cardinals  in  lace  and  scarlet,  statesmen  in 
black  with  painted  sunbeams  lighting  their  harassed 
foreheads  to  a  benignity  at  once  transient  and 
eternal,  scholars  dwarfed  by  immense  tapestries 
cunningly  adjusted  to  disclose  a  view  of  complacent 
oaks  and  jagged  hills — even  the  master  himself, 
standing,  somewhat  inappropriately,  against  a 
background  of  blue,  powdered  with  fleur  de  lys. 

"Who  is  that?"  said  Ray,  glancing  at  the  latter 
portrait. 

"That?  Oh,  that's  the  Mugger.  Rather  a  dear, 
and  quite  impossibly  clever.  We  have  to  dine  with 
him  sooner  or  later." 

Ray  wondered  how  he  would  enjoy  this  pros- 
pect. 

They  were  certainly  rather  a  charming  lot  of 
people.  But  Ray  felt  that  they  had  not  captured, 
as  yet,  that  Balliol  manner  which  he  himself  had 
so  sedulously  cultivated — the  manner  which  As- 
quith  had  once  described  as  a  "tranquil  conscious- 
ness of  effortless  superiority."  There  still  lingered 
in  their  laughs  an  echo  of  the  parade  ground,  their 
talk  was  not  yet  purged  of  the  atmosphere  of  the 
barracks. 

The  conversation  turned,  inevitably,  to  the  sub- 
ject of  sex.  Ray  was  rather  bored.  He  wanted 
to  talk  about  Oxford.  He  watched  the  man  oppo- 
site him,  a  hearty  Wellingtonian,  exploring  with 


4o  PATCHWORK 

many  split  infinitives  and  more  superfluous  adjec- 
tives the  well-worn  path  from  adolescence  to  the 
first  fall  from  virginity.     How  silly  he  was! 

"Don't  you  agree?"  said  the  speaker,  turning  to 
Ray,  and  gulping  half  a  tankard  of  ale  to  cool  his 
fervour. 

"Don't  I  agree  with  what?" 
"With  what  I  was  saying,"  said  the  other. 
"I'm  afraid  I  wasn't  listening." 
"You  looked  as  if  you  were,  at  any  rate." 
"Oh  no — I  was  merely  looking  at  you." 
Everybody  laughed.     "Do  talk  to  us  about  sex, 
Ray,"  said  some  one;  "you  used  to  be  so  priceless 
in  the  Brigade." 

"Sex?"  Ray  smiled.  "Sex  is  either  a  joke  or  a 
physical  exercise." 

"Oh,  the  Balliol  manner  already.  I  thought  you 
said  you  were  going  to  give  up  making  epigrams." 
"So  I  am.  Only  that  happens  to  be  true." 
He  played  with  the  idea,  and  grew  wilful,  turned 
it  upside  down,  tossed  it  hither  and  thither,  let  it 
escape,  recaptured  it,  clothed  it  in  every  possible 
garment,  coloured  it  with  every  possible  hue.  Ray 
was  a  wonderful  talker,  and  he  knew  it.  Talking 
to  a  sympathetic  audience  was  after  all  one  of  the 
finest  arts,  one  of  the  most  exhilarating  recreations, 
and  to-night,  his  first  night  in  Oxford,  he  felt  he 
could  talk  for  ever. 

By  the  time  dinner  was  over,  he  found  himself 


INITIATION  41 

already  the  leader  of  a  set.  He  invited  everybody 
to  come  on  to  his  rooms. 

The  evening  was,  on  the  whole,  a  great  success. 
Naturally  on  a  first  night  such  as  this,  there  were 
some  discordant  personalities,  which  Ray  decided 
would  eventually  have  to  be  weeded  out,  but  en 
masse  they  were  charming  enough.  He  looked 
round  on  them  with  approval.  There  was  Arden, 
for  instance,  a  tall,  fair  creature,  rather  like  a  Vik- 
ing, at  present  engaged  in  playing  a  rag  of  "Nearer, 
my  God,  to  Thee"  on  the  piano,  and  singing  words 
of  his  own  at  the  top  of  a  rather  husky  voice. 
Bending  over  him  was  Ryerson,  small,  dark,  with 
hair  smoothed  back  over  an  angelic  forehead,  who 
had  at  once  endeared  himself  to  Ray  by  his  habit 
of  saying  very  cynical  things  in  a  very  tired  voice. 
At  his  side,  sipping  sherry  and  endeavouring,  quite 
unsuccessfully,  to  create  smoke  rings,  was  Arthur 
Stanton,  who  had  complained  in  Hall  of  the  black 
population  of  Balliol.  There  were  at  least  half  a 
dozen  others,  in  various  states  of  excitement,  and 
they  all  seemed  happy  enough.  There  was  some- 
thing delightful  about  this  party — the  forerunner 
of  so  many  similar  parties,  parties  in  which  the 
whole  of  Oxford  would  eventually  participate. 

Ray,  from  his  corner  on  the  sofa,  ceased  for  a 
minute  to  laugh  and  talk.  He  wanted  to  visualise 
the  scene  clearly.  The  room  was  misted  blue  with 
smoke,  and  clouded  with  incense,  for  as  soon  as 


42  PATCHWORK 

they  had  come  in  he  had  scattered  some  pine  gum 
on  the  embers,  "to  get  the  right  sort  of  fug."  The 
grey  walls  were  softened  and  shadowed,  and  from 
them  the  Pierrots  in  their  white  frames  seemed  to 
nod  approval.  The  candles,  flickering  behind  their 
sapphire  shades,  lit  the  moon-tailed  peacocks' 
feathers  on  the  mantelpiece  to  twitching  life. 

Ray  was  very  sorry  when  they  all  went.  How- 
ever, he  was  pleased  with  the  evening.  He  had,  at 
any  rate,  an  entourage. 

He  blew  out  the  candles,  and  drawing  the  heavy 
curtains,  opened  the  windows.  The  room  was  soon 
filled  with  rain-sweet  air.  He  drew  the  curtains 
again,  and  sat  down  in  front  of  the  dying  fire. 

Well,  things  had  started.  The  curtain  had  gone 
up.  .  .  . 

He  stretched  out  his  arms,  and  laughed. 


CHAPTER  III 


RESOLVE 


IT  was  not  till  nearly  a  week  had  passed  by  that 
Ray  really  understand  how  different  was  the 
real  Oxford  to  the  Oxford  of  his  dreams.  The  first 
few  days  were  spent  in  making  new  acquaintances 
and  forgetting  old  ones*  Everything  seemed  to 
happen  in  such  a  whirl,  with  each  day  so  many  new 
facets  of  Oxford  life  presented  themselves,  that  he 
had  hardly  time  even  to  attempt  to  resolve  this 
patchwork  of  conflicting  pictures  and  emotions  into 
any  sort  of  consecutive  pattern.  So  many  friends 
to  meet,  so  many  books  to  buy,  and  if  the  truth  be 
told,  so  many  disappointments  to  face.  Ray  felt 
that  if  he  did  not  quickly  take  stock  of  his  sur- 
roundings he  would  completely  lose  what  small 
mental  stability  he  had  left. 

One  has  only  to  look  through  the  files  of  such 
representatives  of  Oxford  undergraduate  opinion  as 
The  I  sis  and  The  'Varsity  to  see  how  Oxford  has 
changed.  Apart  from  the  depressing  evidence 
which  appears  in  every  advertisement  that  cigar- 
ettes— really  good  cigarettes — could  be  obtained  for 

43 


44  PATCHWORK 

five  shillings  a  hundred;  that  The  Daily  News  still 
distilled  the  milk  of  pure  Liberalism  for  a  halfpen- 
ny; that  a  dinner  jacket  could  be  bought  and  made 
to  fit  for  the  ridiculous  price  of  six  guineas — apart 
from  all  these  irritating  manifestations  of  a  pros- 
perity which  was,  after  all,  common  to  the  rest  of 
mankind,  there  is  evidence  enough  of  a  spirit  which 
seems  now  to  have  vanished  for  ever — the  spirit 
which  a  distinguished  son  of  Magdalen  caught  so 
perfectly  when  he  wrote  of  "days  of  lyrical  ardour 
and  of  studious  sonnet- writing ;  days  when  one 
loved  the  exquisite  intricacy  and  musical  repetitions 
of  the  ballade,  and  the  vilanelle  with  its  linked 
long-drawn  echoes  and  its  curious  completeness; 
days  when  one  solemnly  sought  to  discover  the 
proper  temper  in  which  a  triolet  should  be  written; 
delightful  days,  in  which,  I  am  glad  to  say,  there 
was  far  more  rhyme  than  reason." 

It  was  days  like  that,  days  when  Oxford  had 
really  been  Oxford,  days  when  one  could  abandon 
oneself  without  interruption  to  a  mood,  days  such 
as  Michael  Fane  had  known  in  his  primrose  pass- 
age through  Sinister  Street,  which  Raymond  longed 
above  all  things  to  recapture.  He  opened  the  sec- 
ond volume  of  "Sinister  Street"  at  random:  "Mi- 
chael wandered  on  in  meditation.  From  lighted 
windows  in  the  High  came  a  noise  of  laugh- 
ter and  voices  that  seemed  to  make  more  grave 
and  more  perdurable  the  spires  and  towers  of  Ox- 


RESOLVE  45 

ford,  deepening  somehow  the  solemnity  of  the  black 
entries  and  the  empty  silver  spaces  before  them. 
Michael  pondered  the  freshmen's  chatter  and  ap- 
prehended dimly  how  this  magical  sublunary  city 
would  convert  all  that  effusion  of  naive  intolerance 
to  her  own  renown.  ..." 

Would  Oxford  ever  again  be  like  that?  Had  it 
ever  been  like  that,  or  had  it  only  existed,  a  silver 
city  of  dream  and  shadow,  in  the  mind  of  a  novelist? 
Everything  seemed  to  have  been  so  easy  in  those 
days — the  channels  so  well  worn.  Ray  had  loved 
even  the  evidence  which  he  had  found  of  intoler- 
ance, of  effete  and  antique  tradition,  in  the  same 
way  in  which  he  had  loved  the  mottled  corbels  and 
gargoyles  which  dreamed  their  twisted  dreams 
above  the  dim  cloisters  of  Magdalen.  He  had 
loved  the  superstitious  veneration  which  had  clus- 
tered round  a  fourth-year  man,  the  particular  and 
meticulous  social  grades  represented  by  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  Union,  a  Blue,  an  editor  of  The  'Var- 
sity, the  head  of  a  political  club.  He  had  loved  the 
evidence  he  had  found  of  wit  and  of  laughter,  the 
epigrams  scattered  like  hard  crystals  through  the 
pages  of  college  magazines.  He  had  loved  the 
superficiality  because  it  was  superficial,  and  as 
such,  an  evidence  of  light-heartedness,  an  evidence 
of  youth  untarnished.  He  had  loved  all  this  com- 
edy of  manners  in  the  same  way  as  he  had  loved  the 
fripperies,  the  patches  and  the  powder  of  some 


46  PATCHWORK 

painted  Macaroni  from  the  coloured  pages  of  a 
history  that  had  passed. 

All  these  things,  as  he  began  to  discover  sadly, 
were  gone.  Blackwell  no  longer  published  precious 
sonnets  in  which  monstrous  linnets  sang  unearthly 
melodies  in  the  golden  fume  of  impossible  Sep- 
tember mornings.  Instead  he  published  "Wheels," 
the  quintessence  of  modernity,  poems  in  which 
there  was  no  rhyme,  and  for  which  there  was  far 
too  much  reason.  "Wheels,"  with  its  harsh  ang- 
ular covers,  its  black  lines  and  its  brick-red  curves, 
seemed  symbolical,  in  some  ways,  of  the  Oxford 
that  was  to  be.  Poems  inspired  by  bitterness,  by 
hatred,  by  a  vision  of  the  sham  and  rottenness 
which  lay  behind  the  faded  pomp  and  circumstance 
of  war.  And  the  damnable  part  of  it  all  was  that 
the  poems  were  right.  They  were  right  because 
they  were  disillusioned,  because  they  were  harsh, 
because  they  had  swept  away  with  a  gesture,  the 
fabric  of  dreams  which  Oxford  had  once  built  with 
so  superb  an  unconsciousness. 

There  is  nothing  more  sad  than  the  renunciation 
of  a  symbol,  the  surrender  of  a  flag.  Oxford 
seemed  to  have  capitulated,  to  have  realised  that  she 
too  was  beaten.  It  was  not  merely  the  outward 
signs  and  sordid  symbols  of  defeat  which  were  most 
striking.  It  was  most  of  all,  thought  Ray,  the 
astonishing  commercialisation  of  the  undergradu- 
ates themselves.    He  had  managed  to  discover,  and 


RESOLVE  47 

to  lead,  a  small  set  which  was  either  too  well  bred 
or  too  insensitive  to  show  any  marked  effects  of  the 
war.  But  the  rest  of  the  College,  and  the  rest  of 
the  university,  seemed  quite  different.  For  in- 
stance, most  people  seemed  to  be  talking  of  nothing 
but  work.  And  then,  some  men  even  imparted  to 
J.  C.  R.  something  of  the  atmosphere  ot  a  mess 
and  talked  in  loud  voices,  from  behind  pipes,  about 
such  things  as  "Bodies"  and  "Black  Marias"  and 
"spinning  nose-dives" — atrocities  which  in  Oxford 
should  never  for  one  moment  have  been  mentioned 
as  even  existent.  But  they  carried  their  obnoxious- 
ness  even  further  than  this.  They  called  J.  C.  R. 
"mess."  They  spoke  of  the  college  chaplain  as 
"the  padre — a  jolly  decent  fellow."  They  described 
chapel  as  "church  parade."  One  particularly  ob- 
jectionable person,  who  had  been  wounded  in  the 
war  and  consequently  considered  that  he  had 
a  right  to  make  himself  unpleasant  to  anybody 
and  everybody  with  whom  he  came  in  contact, 
asked  Ray,  who  happened  to  be  on  that  particular 
morning  rather  paler  than  usual,  if  he  were  "going 
sick." 

"If  you  use  expressions  of  that  nature,  I  shall 
be  sick,  without  the  least  compunction,  on  you," 
Ray  replied.  He  had  been  furious  that  a  reptile  of 
that  nature  should  be  allowed  to  use  such  phrases  in 
a  place  which  he  was  trying  to  love. 

There  were  times  when  he  longed  passionately 


48  PATCHWORK 

that  he  had  been  born  a  few  years  earlier,  so  that 
at  any  rate  he  might  have  known  Oxford  as  she  had 
been  in  the  past.  He  felt  that  then  he  might  have 
died  content. 

Was  it,  however,  impossible  that  the  old  Oxford 
should  return?  Were  things  always  to  be  so  sordid, 
so  practical,  so  commerical?  Was  the  time  never  to 
return  when  one  could  wander  into  J.  C.  R.  and 
inform  the  assembly  there  that  one  had  been  in 
travail  all  the  afternoon  with  a  triolet,  and  not 
be  regarded  as  mad?  It  was  not  merely  the  some- 
what narrow,  but  not  unpraiseworthy,  attitude  of 
the  aesthete.  It  was  something  infinitely  deeper 
than  that — the  exaltation  of  culture  for  the  sake 
of  culture,  the  praise  of  folly  for  the  sake  of  folly. 
And  more,  the  love  of  living  for  the  sake  of  life — 
life  irresponsible,  full-blooded,  triumphant. 

Ray  was,  for  these  reasons,  thoroughly  dis- 
appointed and  dissatisfied  with  Oxford.  He  had 
asked  for  dreams,  he  had  been  given  the  harshest 
realities.  He  had  demanded  a  comedy  of  manners, 
he  had  been  presented  with  a  tragedy  of  bad 
manners.  He  had  come  to  enjoy  life,  and  to  see 
others  enjoy  life,  and  all  he  seemed  expected  to 
do  was  to  work,  and  to  watch  other  people  working. 

Even  if  Oxford  had  been  what  he  had  expected, 
it  would  in  any  case  have  been  extraordinarily  hard 
to  work.  Here  was  the  world  going  to  the  devil, 
nations  running  amok,  battle,  murder,  and  sudden 


RESOLVE  49 

death — and  all  the  time  a  man  was  supposed  to 
sit  down  and  read  the  Political  History  of  England 
in  1603.     It  was  too  much  for  human  endurance. 

How  amazingly  dull  were  these  historians! 
Even  in  a  period  such  as  he  was  supposed  to  read, 
the  Stuarts,  they  seemed  to  take  from  that  crowded 
and  coloured  pageant  all  the  magic  which  it  should 
have  possessed.  [Ray  had  not  yet  read  Trevelyan.] 
He  opened  the  book.  Chapter  I.  "Elizabeth  left 
to  her  successor  a  kingdom  in  most  respects  unlike 
that  which  she  had  received  from  Mary."  Good 
God!  To  open  the  performance  with  a  thing  like 
that!  To  start  all  this  tale  of  tragedy  and  greatness 
with  that  sort  of  stuff!  Ray  felt  that  if  he  had 
written  it  he  would  have  flung  on  the  paper  a 
magnificent  sentence,  which  would  have  strutted 
proudly  over  half  the  page,  its  commas  waving  like 
flags,  its  full  stops  the  final  pendant  in  a  chain  of 
wonderful  phrases.  What  the  devil  was  the  use 
of  saying  that  "Elizabeth  left  to  her  successor  a 
kingdom  in  most  respects  unlike  that  which  she 
had  received  from  Mary"?  It  roused  no  emotions. 
It  didn't  teach  you  anything,  except  to  swear. 

Sometimes  he  would  think  that  he  couldn't 
work  because  he  was  not  getting  enough  exercise. 
And  then  he  would  get  into  shorts,  and  trot  out 
to  Boar's  Hill,  and  rush  wildly  and  exultantly 
over  ploughed  fields  in  a  sort  of  pagan  ecstasy 
till  he  was  tired  out.     But  that  didn't  seem  to 


5o  PATCHWORK 

help  him.  Then  he  thought  that  he  must  be 
reading  the  wrong  stuff,  and  for  hours  he  would 
turn  over  the  yellow  pages  of  the  catalogues  in 
the  Bodleian,  trying  to  find  some  work  which  might 
in  some  degree  hold  his  attention.  But  that 
seemed  equally  useless.  There  was  always  some- 
thing far  more  exciting  to  read — queer  books  on 
psycho-analysis  which  made  the  Librarian  frown 
when  he  was  asked  for  them,  strange,  monstrous 
books  of  which  he  had  dimly  heard  and  which  for  a 
time  exercised  a  subtle  attraction  on  his  thought. 

But  nothing  that  he  did  could  fix  his  attention 
on  his  work.  He  covered  pages  of  notes,  he 
underlined  the  dates  in  red  ink,  he  drew  maps 
of  the  English  colonists  in  America  and  learnt 
all  the  bumps  on  the  coast  off  by  heart  and  filled 
in  the  various  plantations  with  a  brilliant  patchwork 
of  pastel;  he  drew  little  pictures  of  Charles  II 
hurling  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  into  the 
faces  of  an  astonished  and  indignant  House  of 
Commons,  and  of  James  II  climbing  over  the  five- 
barred  gate  of  the  Clarendon  Code  and  falling 
into  the  1688  Revolution  on  the  other  side — but 
it  was  all  useless.  Nothing  that  he  read,  nothing 
that  he  did,  would  remain  in  his  mind  for  more 
than  a  night.  And  so  after  the  first  week  or  so, 
he  decided  to  give  up  the  attempt. 

In  any  case,  what  was  the  use  of  trying  to  work  in 
an   Oxford   which   was   thoroughly   and   radically 


RESOLVE  5 i 

wrong?  The  more  he  read  "Sinister  Street"  the 
more  was  he  conscious  of  a  great  heritage  which  he 
had  lost,  a  great  glory  which  had  passed  him  by. 
Oxford  was  wrong,  and  it  was  no  use  pretending 
that  it  was  not.  There  were  times  in  this  first 
fortnight  when  he  felt  that  he  would  be  happier  in 
London. 

And  then  gradually  Ray,  as  he  pondered  these 
things,  came  to  a  conclusion.  It  first  struck  him 
on  a  night  about  ten  days  after  his  arrival,  when 
he  had  returned  to  his  rooms  with  a  feeling  of 
the  utmost  depression.  He  had  been  to  a  little 
society  at  New  College  called  the  "Tobacchona- 
lians,"  and  had  been  struck  by  the  futility, 
the  reserve,  the  self-consciousness  of  all  present. 
There  had  been  none  of  that  spontaneity,  that 
delightful  carelessness,  about  the  meeting  which 
above  all  things  in  Oxford  he  had  hoped  to  find. 
Whatever  life  there  was  in  the  discussion — it  was 
about  "Art  and  War" — had  been  contributed  by 
himself. 

And  he  came  to  this  conclusion.  Why  should 
not  he,  alone  except  for  a  few  faithful  spirits,  create 
once  again  the  Oxford  that  had  been? 

There  was  something  extraordinarily  exhilarating 
in  the  idea.  How  he  was  to  do  it  he  had  not  the 
faintest  notion.  He  would  have  to  be  something 
very  much  bigger  than  an  aesthete,  because  aesthetes 
are  primarily  lacking  in  a  sense  of  humour,  and  it 


52  PATCHWORK 

is  by  laughter  that  men  are  led.  He  must  be 
something  far  more  brilliant  than  a  mere  wit, 
original  in  a  great  many  other  ways  than  in  his 
epigrams,  or  his  clothes.  He  would  have  to  typify 
and  exaggerate  all  those  qualities  which  had  once 
shone  so  exquisitely  in  Oxford  men. 

To  re-create  the  Oxford  that  had  been!  What 
an  amazing  task!  Ray  knew  that  the  effort, 
herculean  as  it  was,  would  possibly  involve  him 
in  a  good  deal  of  unpopularity,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  would  need  so  much  advertisement. 
However,  the  thought  of  hostility  was  only  a  spur 
to  urge  him  to  greater  efforts.  How  he  was  to 
start  he  did  not  know.  For  the  present  he  would 
plunge  into  every  phase  of  Oxford  life  that  he 
could  still  find,  he  would,  of  set  purpose,  know 
everybody  of  any  interest  or  of  any  talent  in  the 
university.  He  would  cast  his  bread  on  as  many 
waters  as  his  ship  might  chance  to  sail.  .  .  . 

A  fortnight  passed  on  in  this  way,  and  already 
Ray  found  that  he  seemed  to  be  known  by  half  the 
'Varsity.  It  was  rather  the  thing  to  say  "D'you 
know  Sheldon?"  The  answer  was  usually  in  the 
affirmative.  "Queer  sort  of  blighter,"  was  the 
average  criticism — "Rather  clever  though,  isn't 
he?"  Ray  found  that  the  little  engagement  book 
which  he  kept  on  his  mantelpiece  was  now  full 
for  a  week  ahead.  Breakfasts  at  the  Grid — long, 
lazy  breakfasts  with  the  winter  sunshine  filtering 


RESOLVE  53 

through  the  high  windows  into  the  crowded  room — 
lunches  at  some  college  or  other,  wonderful  intimate 
lunches  with  brown  beer  in  silver  tankards  or 
mulled  claret  in  a  pewter  pot.  And  of  course 
endless  teas. 

There  was  a  great  similarity  about  these  teas.  A 
dozen  or  so  usually  seemed  to  turn  up,  there  was 
always  much  discussion  of  who  was  going  to  do 
what,  and  how  they  were  going  to  do  it,  incessant 
cigarette  smoking,  and  a  large  consumption  of 
crumpets  and  parti-coloured  cakes  from  Buol's  or 
the  Cadena.  Ray  usually  seated  himself  in  front 
of  the  fire  on  the  floor,  and  found  quite  naturally 
that  he  seemed  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  chief 
entertainment  of  the  party.  However,  he  meant 
to  be  a  great  deal  more  than  merely  an  entertainer. 
After  all  he  might  go  on  like  this  for  years  and 
never  influence  anybody  or  anything.  And  so  it 
was  that  he  decided  that  he  would  get  hold  of 
the  Press. 

The  first  thing  to  do  was  to  capture  the  recog- 
nised organs  of  undergraduate  opinion  which  so  far 
were  still  dormant  since  the  war.  He  decided  that 
for  the  present  he  would  tell  nobody  of  his  plans, 
not  even  Steele.  He  went  round  to  see  the 
authorities  of  the  Holywell  Press. 

The  Holywell  Press,  till  recently,  was  situated 
in  a  rambling  old  house  in  Holywell  Street,  which 


54  PATCHWORK 

seemed  never  to  begin  and  never  to  end,  and  whose 
entrances  were  very  hard  to  find.  One  went 
through  doors  of  curious  shape  and  rotten  wood, 
on  which  hung  knockers  so  flaked  with  rust  as  to 
have  been  long  useless,  along  passages  lined  with 
fuscous  brick,  through  a  room  where  wheels  and 
cylinders  twined  and  blackened  monotonously,  or 
more  pathetic  still,  lay  in  suspended  animation,  with 
the  floor  heaped  with  scraps  of  chiselled  lead,  or 
strewn  with  limp  proof-sheets,  blurred  and  old. 
Through  this  room  the  way  led  to  a  crazy  flight 
of  stairs  till  eventually  one  penetrated  to  the  inner 
sanctum  of  must  and  menu  cards,  and  met  the  chief. 

Ray,  as  he  pushed  his  way  through  this  maze,  felt 
how  delightful  it  would  be  to  be  able  to  write,  in 
his  own  rooms,  of  the  Oxford  he  wished  to  rebuild, 
and  then  to  bring  along  his  work  and  see  it 
gradually  put  into  print  by  this  medieval  machinery. 

He  found  Baines,  the  managing  editor  of  The 
Isis  that  had  been,  in  the  inner  room.  He  was 
a  shrewd,  likeable  little  man,  with  a  brown 
moustache  and  twinkling  eyes,  like  a  fox  terrier. 

Ray  explained  why  he  had  come.  Baines  leant 
back  in  his  chair,  and  chewed  reflectively  the  stump 
of  his  shiny  pencil. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  about  The  'Varsity," 
he  said.  "You  see,  sir,  that's  already  been  incor- 
porated in  The  Isis." 


RESOLVE  55 

"But  can't  you  get  out  The  his  again?" 

Baines  shook  his  head.  "Not  this  term.  It 
wouldn't  pay,  you  see." 

Ray  looked  rather  crestfallen.  "But  surely  it'll 
have  to  come  out  some  time,  won't  it?" 

Baines  laughed.  "Oh  yes,  sir,  some  time. 
Next  term,  probably." 

That  was  something  at  any  rate.  Eventually  it 
was  decided  that  Ray  was  to  edit  The  his  and 
that  it  should  appear  as  a  sixpenny  weekly  next 
term.  He  departed  with  a  great  bundle  of  pre-war 
copies  of  the  paper  under  his  arm,  to  study  at 
his  leisure,  and  before  that  evening  was  over  had 
already  written  two  leading  articles,  a  poem,  and  a 
couple  of  reviews  of  books  he  had  never  read. 

What  fun  it  was!  Here  at  last  was  something 
on  which  to  feed  his  mind.  Besides,  it  would  give 
him  such  a  delightful  sense  of  power.  If  anybody 
was  disagreeable  now,  the  influence  of  the  Press 
would  be  against  him.  How  splendid  that  sounded! 
Already  epigrams  were  forming  in  his  mind  which 
he  would  hurl,  barbed  and  poisoned,  into  the  breasts 
of  his  opponents.  He  thought  of  so  many  epigrams 
that  he  felt  he  would  have  to  find  a  great  many 
disagreeable  people  on  whom  to  discharge  them. 

He  would  have  to  get  a  good  many  contributors 
to  do  regular  articles.  Steele,  for  instance,  would 
do  the   Union   notes.    By  next  term   the   Union 


56  PATCHWORK 

should  have  got  on  its  feet  again,  and  would  be  all 
the  better  for  a  little  biting  criticism.  He  looked 
over  some  of  the  past  reports. 

"Mr.  N.  McLeod  (Wadham)  communed  breath- 
lessly with  his  boots. 

"Lord  Sandon  (Ch.  Ch.)  indignantly  denied  the 
existence  of  the  idle  rich. 

"Mr.  J.  H.  Burrows  (Balliol)  rose  to  put  some 
plain  facts.     Where  did  he  put  them? 

"Mr.  M.  Wrong  (Balliol)  said,  'Why  drag  in 
Noah?'  and  dragged  in  Aristotle.  We  like  listen- 
ing to  Mr.  Wrong. 

"Mr.  G.  T.  Pearson  (Worcester)  gargled  a  very 
admirable  speech. 

"Mr.  N.  King  (Keble)  spat  blood  with  great 
geniality,  gallantly  throttled  a  burst  of  emotion, 
and  concluded  with  an  andante  peroration  of  three 
words.     We  liked  Mr.  King." 

Ray  chuckled  happily  over  these  excerpts.  He 
jotted  down  a  few  things  to  say  about  future  orators. 

However,  The  I  sis  was  by  no  means  enough. 
Of  course  it  was,  in  its  way,  a  medium  through 
which  he  could  make  his  voice  heard,  but  he  needed 
a  good  deal  more  than  that.  After  all,  anybody 
could  be  editor  of  The  Isis.  It  needed  no  particular 
genius.  And  so,  a  few  days  later,  he  took  the  next 
step. 

He  went  round  to  see  Steele.  He  was  sitting 
in  front  of  the  fire  under  the  frowning  auspices  of 


RESOLVE  57 

Rodin's  "Penseur,"  the  pose  of  which,  for  the 
moment,  he  appeared  to  be  copying.  The  statue 
seemed  to  permeate  the  room  with  an  atmosphere 
of  thoughts  which  indeed  were  too  expansive  for 
their  tiny  surroundings.    He  looked  up. 

"Hullo!" 

"I've  just  become  an  editor,"  said  Ray,  stroking 
the  "Penseur"  affectionately. 

"A  what?" 

"I  said  an  editor." 

"My  dear  Ray,  what  on  earth  of?" 

"The  Isis." 

"Thelsis?     You?     Good  Lord!" 

"I  don't  see  any  particular  reason  for  saying 
'good  Lord!'  It's  going  to  be  the  greatest  pos- 
sible fun." 

He  explained  the  scheme.  He  had  already 
talked  at  random  to  Steele  of  his  plans.  They 
were  both  dissatisfied.  They  both  found  it  extraor- 
dinarily hard  to  work.  Perhaps  the  only  differ- 
ence between  Steele  and  Ray  was  that  the  latter 
was  more  ambitious.  He  had  a  burning  confidence 
in  himself  such  as  is  given  to  few  men. 

"I  shall  want  you  to  do  the  Union  notes,"  he 
said. 

"Damn!" 

"They  won't  take  much  time,"  said  Ray  apolo- 
getically. 

It  suddenly  struck  Steele  that  if  he  ever  spoke 


58  PATCHWORK 

at  the  Union  it  might  be  rather  useful  to  be  able 
to  write  his  own  criticisms. 

"No,  perhaps  it  won't.     All  right  then." 

He  warmed  to  the  idea,  and  they  discussed  it 
in  every  aspect.  Posters  in  the  High — placards 
—"The  New  Oxford,"  "The  Old  Oxford"— 
powerful  articles  which  would  shake  the  intellectual 
world — it  was  all  damned  amusing. 

"But  that  wasn't  really  what  I  came  to  see  you 
about,"  said  Ray. 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"I  want  to  do  something  much  bigger  than 
The  his." 

"What  sort  of  thing?" 

"Well,  a  good  many  things.  But  to  begin 
with,  another  paper." 

"My  dear  Ray  .  .  ."  said  Steele  again. 

Ray  put  his  hand  on  Steele's  shoulder. 

"On  the  contrary,  'my  dear  Steele,'  or  what- 
ever I  arranged  to  call  you.  I  really  don't  see  why 
you  appear  to  be  surprised." 

"Well,  I  suppose  I  oughtn't  to  be  surprised  at 
anything  you  do.  But  really,  you  know,  two  papers 
in  the  first  fortnight.  .  .  ." 

"Yes — but  what  else  is  there  to  do?  It's  hope- 
less to  work  with  Oxford  like  this.  It's  hopeless 
merely  to  run  about  to  clubs  and  societies  and  tea 
parties.  I  shall  go  mad  if  I  don't  do  something, 
and  here's,  at  any  rate,  some  sort  of  way  of  doing  it. 


RESOLVE  59 

I  want  to  write.  I  ...  oh,  Lord,  I  don't  know 
what  I  want  to  do.  But  if  we  can  get  hold  of  the 
Press  of  the  place  we  might,  at  any  rate,  find  out." 

Steele  nodded. 

"But  what  sort  of  paper  do  you  want  to  run?" 
he  asked. 

"A  sort  of  fortnightly  review.  You  see,  The 
I  sis  is  just  a  sort  of  Daily  Mail.  It  isn't  meant 
to  appeal  to  serious  people.  But  I  want  something 
that  will  make  people  sit  up — something  that  will 
make  the  outside  papers  give  us  enormous  reviews. 
Hang  it  all — here  we  are,  back  from  the  war, 
presumably  with  a  certain  amount  of  intelligence, 
and  I  imagine  we've  got  something  we  want  to 
say,  and  I  also  imagine  that  people  might  be 
willing  to  listen  to  us." 

"I  see  what  you  mean." 

"In  any  case  think  of  the  fun  of  the  whole 
thing.  Think  of  writing  priceless  articles,  and 
getting  advertisements,  and  printed  circulars.  It 
would  be  the  first  paper  to  come  out  at  all,  we  could 
be  the  sole  proprietors  and  editors,  and  if  we  sold 
it  at  half  a  crown  we  might  make  a  simply  enormous 
profit.  We  could  get  out  a  subscription  form  for 
four  numbers,  and  if  you  got  all  your  relations,  and 
I  got  all  mine,  that  would  be  about  five  hundred. 
And  then  we're  bound  to  get  about  fifteen  hundred 
from  other  places.  Well,  that  gives  us  a  clear 
thousand  pounds  to  start  on.  .  .  ." 


60  PATCHWORK 

"Good  Lord!" 

"I  wish  you  would  do  something  else  than 
invoke  the  deity,"  said  Ray,  rather  irritably. 

Steele  laughed  happily.  "My  dear  Ray,"  he 
said,  "the  trouble  about  being  sincere  is  that 
it  usually  robs  one  of  self-expression,  and  I  really 
am  getting  sincerely  attached  to  this  stunt." 

"Are  you?"     Ray  looked  at  him  eagerly. 

"I  certainly  am.  Of  course  there'll  be  an 
immense  amount  to  discuss." 

"There  will." 

"But  it's  just  the  sort  of  thing  I've  always 
wanted  to  do." 

Ray  nodded.  "Of  course,  it's  the  sort  of  thing 
that  everybody  wants  to  do,"  he  said. 

"And  if  we  don't  do  it,  I  suppose  some  one 
else  will?" 

"Sure  to." 

The  next  afternoon,  after  lunch,  they  held  a 
council  of  war.  They  decided  that  they  would  get 
The  Oxford  News  to  publish  the  paper,  which  should 
be  a  fortnightly,  and  that  the  first  number  should 
appear  on  the  first  day  of  next  term.  It  would  be 
easy  enough  to  get  copy,  political  or  literary. 

"The  only  question  now  is  the  title,"  said 
Steele. 

"Yes,  of  course,  that's  awfully  important." 

Steele  frowned  hard  for  a  minute.  "What 
about  'The  New  Oxford'?" 


RESOLVE  6 i 

"Isn't  that  the  name  of  some  music-hall?" 
laughed  Ray.  "I  mean,  we  don't  want  it  to  be 
funny,  do  we?" 

"No,  I  suppose  we  don't.  But  we  do  want 
something  that'll  give  in  a  word  or  two  the  impres- 
sion of  Oxford  waking  up  after  the  war.  I  think 
we  ought  to  have  'new'  in  somewhere,  don't 
you?" 

"I  wonder."  Ray  thought  hard.  "Can't  we 
get  something  more — more  transcendental?  I  mean 
something  that  makes  people  leap  up  when  they  see 
it." 

"  'Oxford  Awake!'  what  about  that?" 

"Don't  be  absurd.  No — I  mean  something 
like  'Oxford  on  the  threshold'!" 

"On  the  threshold  of  what?" 

"Oh,  all  sorts  of  things.  New  ideas,  new  this, 
that  and  the  other.  Or  rather,  old  ideas,  because 
that's  what  we  want  to  get  back  to." 

"Well,  I  don't  like  the  threshold  business. 
It's  such  an  awful  word.  It  sounds  as  if  you  were 
tight." 

"Let's  go  out  in  the  quad,  and  think  there," 
said  Ray.     "It  might  clear  our  brains." 

"All  right." 

They  went  down  the  stone  stairs  out  into  the 
quad.  The  air  was  cold  and  sweet.  Pale  wintry 
sunshine  filtered  through  the  bare  branches  of  the 
trees,  and  the  gravel  path  was  a  trellis  work  of  light 


62  PATCHWORK 

and  shadow.     From  Trinity  a  bell  struck  the  hour. 
It  was  half-past  three. 

"How  beastly  bare  everything  looks!"  said 
Steele. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  I  like  these  bare  branches," 
Ray  replied,  "because  I  like  trees  to  do  the  right, 
things." 

"What  sort  of  things?" 

"I  mean  I  like  trees  that  wear  the  proper  clothes 
in  winter  and  don't  swank  about  in  green  all  the 
year  round." 

Steele  laughed.  "I  believe  this  is  the  time 
when  the  human  body  is  at  the  lowest  point  of 
animation,"  he  said,  linking  his  arm  in  Ray's. 

"Oh,  don't  mind  that.     Let's  think." 

They  walked  up  and  down. 

"Every  decent  title  seems  to  have  been  taken, 
you  know."  Steele  kicked  a  stone  irritably  on  to 
the  grass. 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"Well,  The  his,  for  instance.  We  can't  get 
out  a  paper  called  The  New  his,  because  it's  the 
same  old  river." 

"Besides,  our  paper's  going  to  be  a  much 
bigger  thing  than  The  his  will  be,  even  under  my 
editorship." 

"I  know." 

"I  still  think  we  want  something  startling.  I 
mean,  something  that  will  make  all  the  London 
papers  give  us  enormous  reviews." 


RESOLVE  63 

"  'The  Isis  Bursts  its  Banks'?" 

Ray  giggled.  "I  wish  you  wouldn't  be  so 
damned  facetious.  No,  I  mean  something  like 
'Oxford  and  the  New  World.' "  He  glanced 
at  Steele,  who  was  smiling  slyly — "Oh,  I 
know  that's  absurd,  but  we've  got  to  think  of 
something." 

"Look  here — you  walk  round  that  way,  and 
I'll  walk  round  this,  and  we'll  each  take  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  and  then  come  back  and  tell  each  other 
what  we've  thought  of." 

"Very  well,  we'll  do  that." 

They  each  set  off,  and  Ray  lit  a  cigarette,  and 
strolled  into  the  Fellows'  Garden.  Somehow  on  this 
wonderful  March  afternoon  the  idea  of  a  new 
Oxford  seemed  out  of  place.  Oxford  seemed  so 
eternally  wise,  so  immeasurably  venerable.  Any 
idea  of  newness,  any  suspicion  of  Oxford  having 
been  in  any  way  conscious  of  the  travail  of  the 
world,  seemed  to  be  ridiculous  in  this  old  garden. 
Here  were  crocuses,  their  mauves  and  yellows 
made  more  radiant  than  ever  by  the  contrast  of 
the  grey  windows  of  the  Senior  Common  Room. 
The  grass  stretched  under  his  feet,  sleek  and  well 
groomed;  the  quad  was  silent  and  empty,  except 
for  the  faint  crunching  of  Steele's  feet  on  the  gravel 
in  the  distance. 

He  shouted  across  to  him.  "Thought  of  any- 
thing?" 

"No."    His  voice  came  back  faintly. 


64  PATCHWORK 

Ray  frowned.  He  certainly  did  not  seem  in 
the  mood  for  thinking  of  titles.  He  knew  that 
what  Steele  wanted  was  something  rugged  and  new. 
He  wanted  something  that  should  challenge  the 
old  Oxford  out  of  its  slumbers.  A  word  that 
should  contain  in  it  the  echoes  of  conflict — a  phrase 
that  might  in  some  degree  express  the  hope  of 
regeneration.  And  there  was  no  word.  Ought 
there  to  be  a  word?  After  all,  Ray's  whole  idea 
had  been  part  of  a  greater  scheme  for  making 
Oxford  return  to  the  paths  she  had  left.  Phrases 
flitted  through  his  mind,  one  after  the  other,  but 
as  soon  as  they  had  done  so  they  seemed  absorbed 
and  assimilated  into  the  atmosphere  of  Oxford  itself. 

He  walked  up  and  down.  Of  course,  a  title 
would  come  sooner  or  later.  The  title  was  fear- 
fully important.  This  paper  was  going  to  be  a 
big  thing.  It  was  going  to  startle  the  world. 
There  seemed  no  reason  just  then,  at  any  rate,  why 
it  should  not  become  the  biggest  review  in  the 
country.  It  had  a  definite  purpose  to  fulfil,  the 
purpose  which  they  had  already  sketched  out  in 
their  manifesto.  And  above  all,  it  would  give  him 
something  to  do.  During  the  vac.  he  would  write 
poems  and  wonderful  essays,  he  would  collect 
contributions — he  might  even  do  a  poster  or  two. 
Already  in  his  mind's  eye  he  had  visualised  a  huge 
poster  of  a  man  in  blue  trousers  and  spangled, 
spotted   tights    kicking   into   the   air   a   mass   of 


RESOLVE  65 

brightly  coloured  balloons  which  floated  fantastically 
all  over  the  paper.  On  each  of  the  balloons 
could  be  the  name  of  a  contributor,  and  on  the 
largest  balloon  of  all  would  be  the  title,  The 
Oxford  .  .  .  Mercury. 

He  shouted  to  Steele  and  ran  up. 

"I  say,  I've  got  it." 

"What?" 

"The  Oxford  Mercury." 

Pause.    Steele  was  not  particularly  impressed. 

Ray  looked  annoyed.  "Well,  don't  you  like 
it?  Personally  I  think  it's  much  the  best  thing 
we've  thought  of  so  far,  anyway." 

Steele  rubbed  the  toe  of  his  shoe  in  the  gravel. 
"Perhaps  it  is,"  he  said.  "And  it  is  jolly  good  in 
a  way,  only " 

"Only  what?" 

"Well,  it  doesn't  seem  to  get  us  much  further 
really.  I  mean,  it's  got  nothing  about  anything  new 
in  it,  has  it?" 

Ray  smiled,  and  drew  his  arm  in  Steele's. 

"My  dear  old  chap,  just  look  out  there." 

"Well?" 

Steele  looked.  There  was  nothing  very  much 
to  see.  Trinity  was  a  grey  pile  against  a  steel-blue 
sky.  Balliol  seemed  asleep.  And  then  the  silence 
was  broken  by  the  chiming  of  bells.  It  was  four 
o'clock.  First  came  the  stroke  of  St.  Mary's,  cold 
and  clear,  then  the  deep  resonance  of  Big  Tom. 


66  PATCHWORK 

Trinity  broke  in  with  its  silver  peal,  and  from  all 
over  Oxford,  chimes  and  quarters,  clear  and  silver, 
deep  and  muffled,  added  a  miraculous  chorus  of 
melody. 

Then  again,  silence. 

And  Steele  saw  in  a  flash  what  Ray  had 
meant. 

It  was  the  feeling  which  had  passed  through 
Ray's  mind  in  the  Fellows'  Garden — the  feeling 
that  there  must  never  be  a  new  Oxford.  "Oxford 
seemed  so  eternally  wise,  so  immeasurably  vener- 
able .  .  ." 

"See  what  I  mean?" 

Steele  nodded. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  see." 


CHAPTER  IV 

CROWDED  LIFE 

TERM  sped  by  on  wings  of  talk  and  laughter, 
and  Oxford  stretched  her  limbs  and  revived 
again  many  of  the  old  activities  which  she  had 
forgotten.  The  river  once  again  knew  the  bite  of 
oars  and  the  shouting  throng  that  ran  along  the 
bare  banks.  Clubs  opened  their  doors,  armchairs 
were  dusted  and  re-covered,  books  taken  from 
packing  cases  and  placed  once  more  in  triumphant 
rows  along  newly  painted  shelves.  The  Union 
shook  off  her  sleep  and  once  again  the  worn  benches 
of  the  debating  hall  were  crowded  with  under- 
graduates, and  resounding  perorations  broke  the 
silence  of  five  pears. 

But  still  Ray  was  not  satisfied.  Oxford  was  still 
only  superficially  Oxford.  The  more  he  threw 
himself  into  every  side  of  university  life,  the  more 
societies  he  joined,  the  more  dinners  in  which  he 
participated,  the  more  was  he  convinced  that  the 
true  atmosphere  of  Oxford  was  completely  missing. 
The  only  occasion  on  which  he  really  felt  he  was  at 
Oxford  at  all  was  on  one  afternoon  soon  after  he 
had  discussed  The  Oxford  Mercury  with  Steele. 

67 


68  PATCHWORK 

After  so  much  excitement,  Ray  felt  that  he  needed 
rest,  and  he  made  his  way  slowly  and  somewhat 
disconsolately  down  to  Parkin's.  He  had  an  excuse 
for  going  there,  namely  that  he  had  to  buy  a  copy 
of  Maine's  'Ancient  Law,"  but  that  was  not  really 
the  reason  why  he  went.  He  went  because  he  had, 
that  afternoon,  an  irresistible  desire  for  books,  the 
feel  of  books,  the  smell  of  books. 

He  walked  down  the  Turl,  across  the  noisy 
High,  and  into  the  still  old  bookshop.  The 
contrast  between  the  noise  of  the  street  and  the 
tranquillity  among  these  shelves  was  delightful. 
No  sound  here  except  the  occasional  feeble  step  of 
some  old  man  in  the  corner  or  the  faint  rustle  of  the 
leaves  of  some  theological  treatise  which  was  being 
examined  by  an  ancient  clergyman,  seated  on  the 
steps  of  a  ladder. 

Here  at  last,  felt  Ray,  was  the  real  Oxford. 
Here,  in  some  subtle  way,  seemed  concentrated  the 
thought  and  essence  of  all  Oxford  men.  Here  still 
lingered  their  passions  and  desires,  caged  and  dying 
now,  perhaps,  but  able  to  be  wakened  to  fresh  life 
by  one  who  could  still  understand. 

He  looked  at  the  shelf  opposite  which  he  was 
standing.  It  was  full  of  little  paper-covered  books 
of  undergraduate  poetry.  How  adorable  they  all 
were!  Bad  poetry  some  of  it,  perhaps,  some  of  it 
certainly  good.  But  it  was  not  the  actual  worth  of 
the  poems  which  mattered.     It  was  the  fact  that 


CROWDED  LIFE  69 

they  had  been  published  at  all.  He  wondered  what 
their  authors  had  been  like — young  men  whose 
voices  had  so  recently  echoed,  perhaps  in  this  very 
shop,  young  men  who  had  loved  and  lived  only  so 
few  years  ago,  before  the  war.  There  was  a  pathos 
about  these  little  volumes  which  no  other  book 
seemed  quite  to  possess.  With  their  elaborate 
dedications,  their  high-sounding  titles,  their  brightly 
coloured  covers,  they  yet  retained  a  charming 
gaucherie,  a  sweet  precociousness,  which  was  more 
for  tears  than  for  laughter.  They  brought  the 
memory  of  so  much  youth,  so  much  sunshine,  so 
much  love. 

He  turned  aside  and  walked  to  the  next  book- 
case. Here  were  collected  all  the  faded  relics  of  the 
nineties.  A  complete  edition  of  "The  Yellow  Book" 
sprawled  along  the  shelves,  the  intricate  Beardsley 
covers  now  coated  with  dust,  through  which  light 
ladies  with  twisted  eyebrows  and  pierrots  with 
twitching  mouths,  stared  at  him  surreptitiously. 
What  a  fascinating  period  that  had  been !  Ray  was 
still  healthy  enough  to  be  able  to  become  an  aesthete 
at  any  moment,  and  as  he  stood  here,  with  the  fine 
flower  of  aestheticism  before  his  eyes,  he  felt  a  wish 
that  he  himself  had  lived  in  that  wonderful  time. 
He  too  would  have  worn  a  black  cloak  and  a  green 
carnation.  He  too  would  have  waited  eagerly  for 
the  latest  Beardsley  drawing,  the  latest  poem  of 
Ernest   Dowson,   the  bitterest   epigram   of   Oscar 


70  PATCHWORK 

Wilde.  At  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  in  a 
hansom,  he  would  have  driven  to  Covent  Garden, 
and  delicately  he  would  have  alighted  and  threaded 
his  way  through  the  carnations  and  the  country 
roses.  Perhaps  he  too,  like  Dorian  Gray,  might 
have  been  offered  white  cherries  in  the  hat  of  some 
chubby-faced  carter's  lad.  .  .  . 

And  then,  here,  a  little  further  down,  were  all 
the  French  decadents,  shoved  away  in  a  corner, 
where  they  looked  like  yellow  fungus  clinging  to 
the  rotten  walls.  Here  again  were  memories 
enough!  Barbey  D'Aurevilly,  the  king  of  sen- 
sualists, and  all  the  rest  of  Huysman's  works,  with 
their  tired  perversity  and  their  exquisite  prose. 
Verlaine,  with  his  silver  songs  and  his  golden 
moons,  Baudelaire — dear  old  Baudelaire,  how  he 
had  trembled  when  he  had  first  read  "Le  Vin  des 
Amants"!  He  still  had  his  copy  somewhere  at 
home,  underlined  in  a  hand  which  had  shaken  with 
excitement. 

"Anything  I  can  show  you,  sir?" 

Ray  looked  round  at  the  old  man  who  spoke. 
He  hesitated  a  moment. 

"Well,  I  was  thinking  of  some  Beardsley,"  he 
said. 

"Beardsley,  sir?  Ah  yes!"  He  rubbed  his 
glasses,  and  adjusting  them  again,  peered  into  a 
corner  and  drew  out  a  thin  portfolio  bound  with 
faded  green  and  gold,  tied  with  green  ribbons. 


CROWDED  LIFE  71 

"I  have  here,  sir,"  he  fumbled  with  the  ribbons, 
"a  very  fine  first  set  of  the  Beardsley  illustrations 
to  Oscar  Wilde's  'Salome.'  On  parchment,  sir.  A 
very  fine  edition  indeed,  from  the  library  of  the  late 
Mr.  Robert  Ross." 

He  stepped  aside  so  that  Ray  might  look  for 
himself. 

Ray  turned  over  the  pages.  He  had  seen  the 
drawings  before,  but  never  so  beautifully  repro- 
duced. What  an  amazing  creature  Beardsley  had 
been — a  shy,  ugly  youth  who  had  lived  but  twenty- 
three  short  years!  Ray  noticed  what  a  sinister 
power  there  was  in  these  drawings:  Salome  in 
cloaks,  Salome  in  gauze  and  pearls,  Salome  a  tiny 
tragic  figure  being  lifted  into  a  powder  box  by  a 
faun  and  a  pierrot.  He  took  a  strange  pleasure  in 
studying  the  perversion  that  Beardsley  had  put  into 
her  face.  Everything  he  had  drawn  seemed  mis- 
shapen and  monstrous.  Even  the  candlesticks  with 
their  long  dripping  wax  were  unnatural,  and  the 
roses  that  clustered  round  the  frontispiece  twined  as 
no  earthly  roses  had  ever  done. 

He  looked  up  at  Mr.  Parkin,  who  was  gazing 
respectfully  out  of  the  window. 

uHow  much  are  these?"  he  said. 

"Five  guineas,  sir.    Only  five  guineas.    It  is  a 
unique  set." 

"Will   you   put   it   down   to   my   account — Mr. 
Raymond  Sheldon,  Balliol?" 


72  PATCHWORK 

A  faint  ray  of  wintry  sunshine  seemed  to  pass 
over  Mr.  Parkin's  face.  Here  at  last  was  the 
connoisseur  for  whom  he  had  been  waiting.  And 
Ray  too  felt  pleased  that  he  had  decided  as  he  had 
done.  Whenever  he  bought  anything,  he  liked  to 
buy  it  quickly,  without  discussing  the  price.  If  it 
had  been  fifty  guineas  he  would  have  felt  inclined, 
in  his  present  mood,  to  pay. 

"Certainly,  sir.  I  think  you  have  chosen  very 
wisely,  if  I  may  say  so,  sir." 

"Yes?" 

"Is  there  anything  else  I  can  show  you,  sir?  I 
have  a  fine  lot  of  first  editions  from  Lord  Weston's 
library." 

Ray  shook  his  head.  "Not  just  now,  thanks 
very  much.  But  I  shall  be  coming  in  here  a  lot,  I 
expect."  He  cast  his  eyes  affectionately  round  the 
huddled  shelves. 

"I  hope  you  will,  sir."  He  went  to  the  door. 
"Good  day,  sir." 

"Good  afternoon." 

Ray  went  out  into  the  street,  and  drew  his  coat 
closely  round  him.  It  was  cold,  and  already  it 
seemed  to  be  growing  dark.  He  would  go  back  to 
Balliol  and  have  tea  in  the  J.  C.  R. 

By  the  time  he  got  to  the  J.  C.  R.  it  was  already 
dark  outside,  and  the  room  was  a  pleasant  blaze  of 
light  and  warmth.  J.  C.  R.  was  an  amusing  place. 
It  was  not  particularly  beautiful,  it  is  true,  with  its 


CROWDED  LIFE  73 

crude  chintzes  and  its  light  woodwork.  It  had  no 
historical  associations,  having  been  built  only  some 
dozen  years.  Perhaps  for  this  reason  it  was  more 
comfortable  than  the  average  junior  common  room. 
At  any  rate,  it  was  usually  fairly  full,  and  at  tea- 
time  it  was  always  packed.  This  was  the  time  when 
the  Oxford  politicians  held  forth  in  front  of  the  fire, 
while  the  aesthetes  looked  on  with  bored  toleration 
and  the  athletes  tumbled  over  chairs  in  the  back- 
ground. 

Ray  sat  down  and  ordered  some  muffins  and 
some  tea. 

"Hullo  r 

He  looked  up  and  saw  Mace. 

"Well?" 

"And  how's  our  wealthy  young  aesthete?" 

Ray  laughed.  "I  never  answer  questions  like 
that,  Tony,"  he  said. 

Mace  sat  down  by  his  side.  He  was  a  remark- 
able sight  that  afternoon.  Tall  and  fair,  with  the 
face  of  a  tired  child,  he  had  been  severely  wounded 
in  the  war,  and  in  consequence  seemed  to  cherish  a 
resentment  against  every  institution  and  person  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact.  At  all  events  he  made  it 
his  business  to  annoy  as  many  of  the  people  of 
whom  he  disapproved  as  possible,  which  probably 
accounted  for  his  appearance  this  afternoon. 

He  turned  to  Ray  and  produced  a  long  yellow 
scarf  from  his  pocket. 


74  PATCHWORK 

"Don't  you  think  this  is  rather  lovely?"  he 
said,  rubbing  it  affectionately  against  his  cheek. 

"Yes,  I  do.  I  wish  people  would  start  wearing 
those  sort  of  things  again." 

"Wear  it?  Of  course  I'm  going  to  wear  it.  I 
shall  wear  damn  well  what  I  please."  He  laughed 
slyly  and  stretched  himself  out  in  the  chair  like  a 
brightly  striped  cat.  "I  think  my  general  ensemble 
is  rather  pleasant  to-day." 

Ray  looked  at  him.  Pale  grey  suede  shoes  on 
his  feet,  lemon-coloured  socks,  pale  grey  trousers,  a 
lemon-coloured  waistcoat,  a  tie  of  shot  green  silk, 
and  a  grey  Norfolk  jacket.  "I  met  that  cow 
Aberconway  in  the  quad  just  now,  and  he  told  me 
to  get  my  hair  cut.  I  wish  you  could  have  heard 
what  I  said  to  him.  I  simply  cursed  him  till  I  was 
pale  mauve  in  the  face  and  he  was  a  rich  sort  of 
plum  colour.  He  went  straight  off  and  had  a  bath. 
I  sincerely  hope  he  drowns.     Charles ! " 

"Yes,  sir?"  Charles  was  the  chief  J.  C.  R. 
waiter. 

"Do  buck  up  with  my  tea,  Charles.  The  fug 
in  this  room  is  simply  hideous." 

"Just  got  it  here,  sir."  He  put  down  a  tray  in 
front  of  the  recumbent  Mace,  who  took  a  muffin 
and  turned  again  to  Ray. 

"Well,  and  what  have  you  been  doing  all  the 
afternoon?" 


CROWDED  LIFE  75 

"I've  been  buying  books,  if  you  really  want  to 
know." 

"Buying  books?  Good  God,  what  a  thing  to 
do!  I  never  buy  books.  I  either  borrow  them  or 
don't  read  them  at  all.  It's  no  use  buying  books 
nowadays.     It's  absolutely  impossible  to  work." 

He  ran  his  hands  through  his  hair.  Ray  did 
not  attempt  to  contradict  him.  Besides,  he  entirely 
agreed. 

"I  don't  know  how  you  feel,"  Tony  went  on, 
"but  I  seem  to  be  utterly  unable  to  settle  down  to 
any  sort  of  concentrated  effort  whatever.  I'm  not 
altogether  unintelligent."  He  laughed.  "But  I'm 
damned  if  I  can  do  so  much  as  think  nowadays. 
It's  simply  ghastly.  I  go  up  to  my  room,  and  sit 
down  in  front  of  some  wretched  book  on  Napoleon, 
and  smoke  endless  cigarettes  and  get  up  feeling  an 
utter  wreck  having  accomplished  nothing  whatever 
It  really  is  awful." 

Ray  nodded. 

"I  never  used  to  be  like  that.  At  school  it 
used  to  be  comparatively  simple  to  write  essays — 
rather  good  essays,  too — but  here  it  just  can't  be 
done.  One's  pen  seems  to  weigh  about  a  ton,  and 
when  you  try  to  think  what  to  put  down,  your 
mind's  just  a  blank.  Or  rather,  it  isn't  even  that. 
It's  full  of  the  most  absurd  rot  which  shoves  out 
anything  decent  you  might  ever  think  of  saying. 


76  PATCHWORK 

...  I  think  Oxford's  a  thoroughly  immoral  place. 
At  any  rate  it  is  for  any  one  who's  just  come  back 
from  France." 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

Tony  kicked  a  cushion  irritably.  "Well,  I 
should  have  thought  it  was  pretty  obvious,"  he 
said.  "In  the  army  you  never  had  to  think  at  all. 
It  was  more  or  less  fatal  if  you  did.  And  every 
silly  minute  of  your  life  was  taken  up  with  some 
mechanical  work,  so  that  while  your  mind  had 
ceased  to  exist  you  didn't  notice  it  because  it  simply 
didn't  matter.  You  were  just  part  of  a  machine. 
And  then — when  this  great  and  glorious  war 
stopped,"  he  spoke  bitterly,  "when  it  stopped,  one 
was  suddenly  hurled,  like  an  over-grown  baby,  into 
the  middle  of  Oxford.  And  the  whole  point  of 
Oxford  is,  or  should  be,  that  there  is  no  sort  of 
discipline  whatever  except  what  one  makes  with 
one's  own  mind.  It  really  should  be  an  admirable 
training  because  it's  all  done  by  oneself.  But  we've 
got,  or  at  any  rate  I've  got,  absolutely  no  sort  of 
power  left  to  do  it  now.  It  would  have  been 
different  if  one  had  come  straight  to  Oxford  from 
school.  At  school  I  was  more  or  less  a  rational 
being.  At  any  rate  I  could  think.  But  when  you 
have  three  years  in  the  army  absolutely  devoid  of 
thought,  and  filled  at  the  same  time  with  the  most 
unutterable  bloodiness  that  any  man's  ever  had  to 
go  through — well  .  .  ." 


CROWDED  LIFE  77 

"Well,  what?" 

Tony  laughed  again.  "Well,  the  result,  my 
dear  Raymond,  is  what  you  see  before  you." 

He  swallowed  some  tea  and  lit  a  cigarette.  They 
talked  desultorily  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  Tony 
wandered  off. 

Rather  sadly,  Ray  watched  him  go  out.  Poor 
Tony!  He  was  an  example  of  the  war's  worst  ef- 
fects on  a  very  sensitive  and  not  unlovable  tempera- 
ment. Perhaps  in  time  he  would  find  his  feet  again. 
At  present  he  seemed  to  be  floundering  hopelessly. 
Why  shouldn't  he  become  an  ally?  His  mental 
condition  seemed  rather  similar  to  that  of  Ray's  at 
the  beginning  of  term.  He  had  a  more  than  aver- 
age share  of  brains  and  no  way  in  which  to  employ 
them.  Ray  was  on  the  point  of  getting  up  to  fol- 
low him,  to  tell  him  about  his  various  schemes, 
when  he  saw  Steele's  head  peering  round  the  door. 

He  beckoned  to  him  to  come  and  sit  down. 

"I  was  just  looking  for  you,"  said  Steele  myster- 
iously. 

"What  about?" 

"The  O.M.,"  he  whispered. 

"Oh,  any  new  developments?" 

"Yes,  I  went  round  to  see  The  Oxford  News 
people,  and  made  an  appointment  to  go  there  in 
about  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Can  you  come  on 
now?" 

"Rather." 


7  8  PATCHWORK 

As  they  went,  Ray  discussed  Mace. 

"We  might  make  him  into  a  'creature/  "  he  said, 
smiling.  The  word  was  a  favourite  with  him,  and 
was  applied  indiscriminately  to  those  persons  whom 
he  drew  into  his  net. 

"He  ought  to  make  rather  a  good  one,"  laughed 
Steele. 

"Well,  you'll  have  to  get  hold  of  him.  He  must 
be  made  quite  docile." 

"Of  course." 

They  had  not  far  to  walk,  because  the  offices  of 
The  Oxford  News  were  situated  at  the  farther  end 
of  the  Corn,  just  where  that  street  makes  its 
crowded  and  noisy  meeting  with  the  High. 

They  stumbled  up  some  narrow  stairs,  went  by 
mistake  into  a  typewriting  office,  and  eventually 
landed  in  a  large  room  principally  occupied  by  an 
enormous  table  covered  with  papers  in  hopeless 
confusion. 

They  were  greeted  by  Mr.  Waterberry,  the  sub- 
editor of  The  Oxford  News.  He  was  a  charming 
little  man,  so  diminutive  that  when  he  sat  down 
only  his  head  was  visible  above  the  table,  and  as 
that  head  was  covered  with  a  mass  of  straight  gin- 
ger hair,  which  stuck  out  in  all  directions  like  a 
halo,  it  seemed  as  though  a  pocupine  had  landed  on 
the  table,  and  apart  from  Ray  and  Steele,  was  the 
sole  occupant  of  the  room. 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Steele,"  he  boomed,  in  a 


CROWDED  LIFE  79 

voice  far  out  of  proportion  to  the  size  of  his 
body. 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  W'aterberry,"  replied  Steele. 
"I've  brought  along  my  co-editor,  Mr.  Raymond 
Sheldon." 

They  shook  hands  warmly,  and  Mr.  Waterberry 
informed  Ray  that  he  was  delighted  to  meet  him. 

Steele  had  already  settled  the  principal  points 
of  publication  with  Waterberry,  the  price  of  print- 
ing, etc. — so  now  the  chief  item  to  be  arranged  was 
the  question  of  advertisement. 

"What  about  sandwich  men?"  said  Steele. 

Mr.  Waterberry,  whose  dominant  characteristic 
seemed  to  be  a  mixture  of  slyness  and  amiability, 
looked  at  him  from  the  corner  of  his  large  and 
watery  eye. 

"Ah,  Mr.  Steele,"  he  said,  "sandwich  men,"  he 
shook  his  head,  "are  not  what  they  used  to  be. 
Not  by  any  means." 

"Why?"  said  Ray. 

"It  would  be  difficult  to  say,"  said  Mr.  W'ater- 
berry with  an  elaborate  shrug.  "But  I  assure  you 
they  aren't." 

"Well,  what  about  sending  circulars  to  the  whole 
university?" 

Mr.  Waterberry  beamed.  "Ah!  circulars.  That 
is  a  very  different  matter.  Very  different,  indeed." 
He  pursed  his  lips. 

Steele  produced  some  manuscript  from  his  pocket. 


80  PATCHWORK 

It  was  a  manifesto  which  he  had  concocted  with 
Ray,  setting  forth  the  attractions  of  the  O.M. 

Mr.  Waterberry  frowned  severely,  adjusted  his 
glasses,  hitched  up  his  chair,  and  perused  the  docu- 
ment with  attention. 

"THE  OXFORD  MERCURY. 
"A  Political  and  Literary  Review. 
"The  first  number  of  this  paper  will  be  published 
in  the  first  fortnight  of  the  Summer  term.  It  will 
be  written,  edited,  and  controlled  entirely  by  under- 
graduate members  of  the  university,  and  will  en- 
deavour to  reflect  every  aspect  of  university  thought 
and  university  ideals.  The  high  cost  of  printing 
and  publishing  makes  it  impossible  to  produce  the 
paper  under  the  sum  of  half  a  crown,  but  it  is 
hoped  that  the  urgent  necessity  for  a  journal  of 
this  nature  in  the  critical  period  through  which 
We  are  passing,  and  the  vital  quality  of  its  message, 
will  not  prevent  its  widespread  circulation. 

Raymond  Sheldon, 
Curtis  Steele, 

Editors." 

Mr.  Waterberry  found  the  circular  quite  admir- 
able. 

"And  I  think  you'd  better  put  the  sub-title  in 
italics,"  said  Steele. 

Mr.  Waterberry  looked  very  sly.  "Ah!  italics!" 
he  said,  and  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets  as  though 
he  carried  italics  about  with  him.     "Italics!     Yes, 


CROWDED  LIFE  81 

I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  put  it  in  italics.  Of 
course — I'm  not  absolutely  sure  if  we  have  the 
type  you  want."  His  sentences  had  a  way  of  start- 
ing very  softly,  bursting  into  a  crescendo  in  the 
middle,  and  then  dying  into  the  slyest  of  whispers 
at  the  end.     "Just  one  moment." 

He  looked  very  important  and  turned  very  hard 
the  handle  of  what  appeared  to  be  an  old  sewing 
machine,  connected  with  pipes  to  the  floor.  A  fee- 
ble tinkle  came  from  it,  and  it  was  seen  to  be  a 
telephone. 

"Er — just  send  Mr.  Read  up  to  me  a  moment." 
He  spoke  very  fiercely  indeed. 

A  voice  was  distinctly  heard  from  downstairs 
answering  "Yes,  sir,"  and  the  receiver  was  put 
back,  emitting  a  loud  whirring  noise  in  the  process. 
Mr.  Waterberry  pushed  it  away  from  him  as  though 
it  might  explode.     "Invaluable  things,  telephones." 

"Yes,  they  are,  aren't  they?"  replied  Raymond. 
He  could  see  that  Steele  was  convulsed  with  silent 
laughter. 

"I  don't  know  what  I  should  do  without  them 
at  all."  He  looked  at  Raymond  from  the  corner 
of  his  eye.  "Quite  invaluable.  Quite — ah!  Mr. 
Read." 

Mr.  Read  appeared — a  weedy-looking  youth, 
with  spots  and  pince-nez.  Mr.  Waterberry  ad- 
dressed him.  "Er!  Mr.  Read,  these — er — gentle- 
men are  thinking  of  publishing  a  review." 


82  PATCHWORK 

Mr.  Read  looked  as  though  he  had  been  told 
they  were  about  to  blow  up  the  Bodleian.  How- 
ever, he  managed  to  gulp  "Yes,  sir."  Mr.  Water- 
berry  continued  in  an  elaborately  unaffected  man- 
ner. 

"The — er — periodical  will  be  published  by  us. 
Now  there  is  just  a  little  question  of  a  circular 
which  we — er — propose  to  send  out  to  possible  sub- 
scribers." 

He  glanced  at  Raymond  with  incredible  subtlety. 
"That  is  right,  I  believe,  is  it  not?" 

"Quite." 

"To  possible,  I  may  say  to  intending  subscribers. 
Ha!  ha!" 

He  paused  to  laugh  at  some  joke  which  he  ap- 
peared to  see.  Neither  Raymond  nor  Steele  saw 
the  joke,  but  they  immediately  took  the  opportunity 
of  getting  rid  of  some  of  the  laughter  which  they 
had  been  suppressing.  When  the  noise  was  over 
Mr.  Waterberry  suddenly  became  very  serious 
again  and  frowned  at  Mr.  Read,  who  shuffled  his 
feet  nervously. 

"Now,  what  I  wished  to  see  you  about  is  the 
printing  of  this  circular.  It  is  all  quite  plain  except 
for  the  sub-title.  That  the  editors  wish,  for  the 
sake  of  style,  to  be  printed  in  italics."  He  pushed 
the  circular  over  to  Mr.  Read. 

Read  gasped  at  the  circular.  "We  ain't  got  no 
hitalics  in  stocks,  sir,"  he  said  breathlessly. 


CROWDED  LIFE  83 

"Oh,  I  say  ..."  said  Steele. 

"One  moment,  Mr.  Steele."  Mr.  Waterberry 
waved  him  aside  with  beaming  suavity,  and  sud- 
denly frowned  again  at  Read. 

"Did  I  understand  you  to  say  you  had  no 
italics?" 

"No,  sir."    Read  looked  on  the  point  of  tears. 

"Really,  I  must  say  ..."  Steele  was  again 
waved  aside  by  the  imperturbable  Mr.  Waterberry. 

"These  little  matters  .  .  ."  he  said,  and  glanced 
at  Raymond  as  though  he  at  any  rate  understood 
the  deep  inner  meaning  01  all  he  said.  He  again 
addressed  Read  as  though  he  had  stolen  the  italics, 
and  sold  them  for  incredible  sums. 

"We  have  always  had  italics.  We  have  never 
been  without  them  before.    What  is  the  reason?" 

Read  wiped  his  mouth.  "All  used  for  the  Pro- 
hibition Meeting  pamphlets,  sir,  there  was  a  lot  of 
hunderlinin'  in  'em.  They  used  up  all  the  italics 
we  'ad.  Hin  fac'  we've  'ad  to  borrow  some  h's 
from  the  'Oily well  as  it  is." 

"How  long  will  these  italics  be  in  use?"  Mr. 
Waterberry  was  one  enormous  frown  from  head  to 
foot. 

"Don't  know  'ow  many  more  pamphlets  they 
want,  sir.  We're  keepin'  all  the  type  set  up,  in 
case  they  should  want  some  more." 

Mr.  Waterberry  paused,  and  then  leant  forward. 

"The  type  must  come  down."    He  was  almost 


84  PATCHWORK 

fierce.  "These  circulars  are  more  important  than 
those  pamphlets.  Far  more  important.  You  may 
give  orders  for  the  type  to  be  taken  down.  That 
will  do."  He  waved  Read  to  the  door  with  a  ges- 
ture that  was  magnificent.  Read  gulped  and  shuf- 
fled out.  Things  were  certainly  moving  in  the  of- 
fices of  The  Oxford  News. 

Steele  now  broke  in.  "I  say,  you  know,  I'm 
awfully  sorry,  but  we  simply  must  have  it  quite 
clear  about  these  italics."  He  put  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  firmly. 

Mr.  Waterberry  leant  back  in  his  chair  and  toyed 
with  his  watch-chain.  "Ah,  Mr.  Steele,  there  will 
be  no  difficulty  about  that.  No  difficulty  whatever. 
I  have  ordered  the  type  to  be  taken  down.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  but  it  isn't  only  these  circulars  I'm  think- 
ing of,  it's  the  future.  We  may  want  heaps  of 
italics,  especially  if  we  have  much  poetry.  Why, 
supposing  we  wanted  the  whole  of  one  number  in 
italics — what  should  we  do?  We  might.  You 
never  know." 

Mr.  Waterberry  listened  to  him  with  a  bland 
smile. 

"There  will  be  no  difficulty,  Mr.  Steele,  should 
you  wish  to  do  so,  though  I  cannot  say  I  think  it 
would  be  advisable  to  print  a  whole  number  in 
italics."  He  shook  his  head  gravely.  "Far  from 
advisable,  especially  from  the  advertisers'  point  of 
view.     But,  however  you  may  wish  it  to  be  printed, 


CROWDED  LIFE  85 

I  shall  make  a  point  of  seeing  that  we  have  ade- 
quate type.     It  must  be  adequate." 

"It  must,"  said  Steele  grimly. 

"I  shall  therefore  procure,  at  the  earliest  possible 
opportunity,  additions  to  our  existing  stock.  In 
fact,  while  we  have  been  talking  I  have  already 
looked  up  the  telephone  number  of  our  city  repre- 
sentatives to  communicate  with  them  on  the  sub- 
ject to-day." 

He  leant  forward  with  an  air  of  triumph.  Even 
Steele  was  hardly  prepared  for  such  slyness. 

"Oh,  that's  awfully  good  of  you.  I'm  very  glad, 
because  it  is  important,  isn't  it?" 

"Vital,"  said  Mr.  Waterberry.  "Absolutely  vital. 
What  can  one  do  without  good  type?  Nothing. 
Nobody  will  read  a  badly  printed  paper."  He 
gazed  into  space,  and  then  frowned  again. 

"Now  I  think  we  have  settled  everything  about 
this  circular.     Am  I  right?" 

"Yes,  now  we've  arranged  about  the  italics." 
Steele  was  still  a  little  suspicious. 

"Precisely.  Well,  then,  all  that  remains  now  is 
the  agreement.  And  if  I  have  it  drawn  up  would 
you  be  good  enough  to  come  in  to-morrow  to  ap- 
pend your  signatures?" 

"Yes,  rather.     What  time?" 

"About  twelve,  if  that  will  be  convenient?" 

"Yes,  that'll  do  me  all  right."  Raymond  nodded 
too. 


86  PATCHWORK 

"Very  well  then.  I  think  we  may  congratulate 
ourselves  on  a  very  good  evening's  business."  He 
smiled  a  smile  as  ineffably  obscure  as  the  Mona 
Lisa. 

"I  will  have  this  circular  sent  to  the  printers  at 
once."  He  dragged  it  from  the  chaos  of  papers 
with  which  it  was  surrounded,  and  regarded  it  with 
a  beneficent,  paternal  air.  "Yes,  I  think  this 
sounds  admirable.  Most  admirable.  It  is  bound 
to  attract.  You're  sure  you  think  that  we  can  dis- 
pense with  the  asterisks?"  He  looked  at  Ray- 
mond pathetically  over  the  tops  of  his  glasses. 

"Yes,  I  don't  think  we  want  them." 

"Provided  the  italics  are  all  right,"  added  Steele. 

Mr.  Waterberry  wafted  him  a  smile  of  absolute 
tranquillity. 

"Oh,  there  will  be  no  difficulty  at  all  about  that. 
No  difficulty.  Good  evening."  He  opened  the 
door  for  them  mysteriously,  and  they  stumbled 
down  the  narrow  stairs  into  the  noisy  street. 


CHAPTER  V 

RAY  MIXES  HIS  COLOURS 

RAY  was  so  occupied  with  The  Isis  and  The 
Oxford  Mercury  that  he  was  a  little  taken 
aback  when,  a  week  before  the  end  of  the  term, 
Tugly  informed  him  that  he  would  be  given  a  "col- 
lecer." 

"My  dear  Tugly,  how  quite  unkind  of  you! 
You  know  I  haven't  done  any  work." 

"That's  why  I  think  you  ought  to  be  examined." 
"But  how  can  I?     I've  only  had  eight  weeks!" 
"Never  mind,  you've  still  got  five  days." 
Ray  ran  straight  up  to  his  room  and  cancelled 
all  his  engagements  for  the  next  day  or  two  on  the 
ground  of  work.     There  was  something  most  un- 
pleasant about  an  exam,  just  now — the  first  after 
so  long  a  period  of  inactivity. 

However,  in  some  ways  he  was  glad  of  the 
change.  Of  late  he  had  certainly  been  overdoing 
it.  Every  meal,  every  minute  of  the  day  seemed 
to  have  been  spent  in  being  amused,  or  more  often, 
amusing  other  people.  But  here  in  his  rooms,  he 
could  sport  his  oak;  take  down  from  its  shelf 
Grant  Robertson's  "Statutes,  and  Documents,"  pour 

87 


88  PATCHWORK 

out  a  glass  of  sherry,  put  another  log  on  the  fire, 
open  a  fresh  box  of  cigarettes,  and  read  and  read. 
There  was  something  fascinating  in  so  intense  a 
concentration,  and  he  would  sometimes  wonder  if 
he  had  really  chosen,  in  his  passage  through  Ox- 
ford, the  right  path.  It  would  surely  be  a  fine 
thing  to  live  for  ever  reading  sunlit  books  in  old 
windows,  or  when  the  sun  was  gone  to  trace  deli- 
cately the  misty  lives  of  forgotten  Puritans,  to  wear 
their  clothes,  to  speak  their  language.  Moreover, 
it  would  be  a  mode  of  escape,  if  it  were  staged  as 
Ray  would  stage  it,  from  all  the  tight,  glaring 
things  of  to-day.  Every  day  he  would  be  in  his 
library,  in  his  window,  breathing  the  smell  of 
books  blended  with  the  scent  of  an  unknown  spring, 
and  every  night  would  find  him  bent  under  his 
green  lamp.  He  would  be  able  to  take  a  pleasure 
in  studying  his  increasing  age  and  feebleness,  the 
growing  transparency  of  his  yellow  hands.  .  .  . 

Damn!  Even  when  he  tried  to  concentrate  he 
was  more  interested  in  the  pose  he  was  assuming 
than  in  the  work  he  was  supposed  to  do.  How- 
ever, five  days'  hard  reading  of  potted  history,  con- 
tinued with  the  assistance  of  pints  of  black  coffee 
late  into  the  night,  managed  to  secure  him  an  a(3 
so  he  felt  on  the  whole  satisfied.  If  he  could  do 
as  well  as  that  in  five  days,  he  ought  to  be  all  right 
when  the  finals  came. 


RAY  MIXES  HIS  COLOURS  89 

Meanwhile,  finals  were  still  a  very  long  way  off, 
and  during  the  vac.  he  engaged  himself  with  prep- 
arations for  the  summer  term.  Steele  was  in 
France,  amusing  himself  with  the  camp  followers 
of  the  Peace  Conference  in  Paris,  and  consequently 
most  of  the  work  devolved  upon  himself.  How- 
ever, Ray  did  not  particularly  mind.  He  liked  hav- 
ing a  lot  to  do,  and  set  himself  to  tackle  The  Ox- 
ford Mercury. 

Perhaps  the  most  fascinating  part  of  the  cam- 
paign was  the  manufacture  of  posters.  For  a  few 
days  his  room  in  Curzon  Street  was  transformed 
into  a  studio,  and  Lady  Sheldon  lamented  plain- 
tively that  he  spoilt  all  the  furniture  by  sticking 
pins  into  it,  and  all  the  rugs  by  covering  them  with 
a  coating  of  gold  paint.  Ray  was  very  fond  of 
gold  paint,  which  he  had  bought  originally  to  colour 
the  baggy  trousers  of  a  misshapen  pierrot,  with 
green  fingernails  and  purple  lips,  whom  he  repre- 
sented as  reading  a  copy  of  the  Mercury  to  a  group 
of  pale  pink  apes.  Then  there  was  a  wonderful 
picture  of  a  tiny  man  with  a  hump,  sitting  on  an 
elongated  mushroom  and  blowing  bubbles  to  the 
moon,  on  each  of  which  was  written  the  name  of 
a  contributor,  the  moon  itself  bearing  the  name  of 
the  paper.  But  the  picture  on  which  he  most 
prided  himself  was  one  in  which  a  crowd  of  dwarfs 
and  peacocks  huddled  together  in  terror  before  an 


9o  PATCHWORK 

attenuated  harlequin,  clad  in  an  elaborate  cap  and 
gown,  who  was  throwing,  from  a  silver  bag,  copies 
of  The  Oxford  Mercury  into  their  midst.  Ray  felt 
considerable  pride  in  these  pictures,  which  were,  in- 
deed, rather  brilliant  improvisations,  and  refused  to 
listen  to  his  mother  who  told  him  that  they  re- 
minded her  of  the  nightmares  of  a  cocaine  fiend. 

From  the  Mercury  he  turned  to  The  Isis.  Of 
course,  since  The  Isis  was  a  record  of  current 
events,  he  could  hardly  write  it  in  advance. 
However,  he  felt  he  might  as  well  do  a  few  amus- 
ing articles  while  he  still  had  plenty  of  time. 
What  did  amuse  people  at  Oxford?  Something 
personal,  probably.  He  remembered  how  a  small 
but  decorative  youth  at  Merton,  Paul  Harcourt,  had 
scandalised  the  university  by  appearing  in  corduroy 
trousers,  and  had  subsequently  scandalised  it  still 
more  by  appearing  one  night  without  any  trousers 
at  all,  explaining  that  they  had  been  removed  and 
tied  to  a  lamp-post  by  an  unsympathetic  horde  of 
intoxicated  conventionalists.  Ray  sat  down  at  once 
and  wrote,  in  free  verse, 

The  Sad  Story  of  the  Young  Gentleman  from 
Merton 
"I  will  wear  Cubist 
Trousers," 
He  said. 

"I  will  make  Oxford  beautiful. 
I  will  make  the  High 


RAY  MIXES  HIS  COLOURS         91 

Hectic, 

And  the  Corn 

Crimson,"  he  said. 

"I  will  wear  Cubist 

Trousers." 

(At  this  point  Ray  drew  a  picture  of  a  thinly 
disguised  Harcourt  setting  out  from  a  thinly  dis- 
guised Merton,  arrayed  in  Cubist  trousers  and  an 
expectant  look.) 

However,  the  Philistines 
(Who  were  not 
Beautiful) 
Beset  him. 

"We  will  not  have  Cubist 
Trousers,"  they  said. 
"It  is  not  nice  to  wear  Cubist 
Trousers," 
They  said. 
"They  are  affected. 
Let  us  de- 
Bag  him." 
And  they  de- 
Bagged  him. 

(Here  a  picture  of  the  process  of  debagging.) 

This  is  what  always  happens  at  Oxford 

When  one  tries 

To  be 

Decorative. 

"We  will  wear  Cubist  trousers." 


92  PATCHWORK 

Ray  was  rather  pleased  with  this  little  story, 
which  was,  in  a  way,  symbolical  of  his  own  fight  for 
free  expression.  And  the  pictures  were  certainly 
wonderful. 

He  was  already  being  besieged  with  contribu- 
tions, and  had  no  idea  that  so  many  people  in  Ox- 
ford wrote  verse.  He  wished  they  would  write 
prose,  instead  of  breaking  into  song  unasked. 
However,  some  of  the  verse  was  worth  putting  in, 
for  instance,  Charles  Clifford's  sonnet,  the  very  title 
of  which  was  worth  a  dozen  sonnets.  It  was  called 
"Taedium  Vitae:  Vita  Nova:  Climax:  Anti-Climax: 
Taedium  Vitae." 

Less  subtle,  but  probably  more  likely  to  be 
popular,  was  "The  'Varsity  Rag,"  by  John  Len- 
nox: 

Oh!  You'll  do  it  in  your  bath,  you'll  do  it  in  the 

town, 
You'll  do  it  in  pyjamas  and  you'll  do  it  in  your 

gown, 
With  the  Jaggers  Jazz,  and  the  Coppers  Craggers 

Crawl, 
And  the  Magdalen  Meander,  say,  Kid,  some  ball ! 
Oh !  the  Trinity  Twinkle  and  the  Brasenose  Bend 
Will  fairly  wilt  your  collar  down  and  kill  you  in  the 

end, 
And  the  Wadham  Waddle 
Ain't  all  twaddle. 


RAY  MIXES  HIS  COLOURS         93 

And  the  dance  they  do  at  Balliol 
Would  tickle  up  Gamaliel, 
And  you  can't  sit  near  his  feet 
When  he's  doing  that  'Varsity  Rag. 

Philip  Arden  eventually  set  this  to  music,  and 
during  the  subsequent  Eights  Week  it  was  played 
at  all  the  dances,  much  to  Lady  Sheldon's  delight. 

What  a  lot  there  was  to  do!  And  yet  it  really 
was  amusing,  and  also  an  excellent  way  of  point- 
ing mild  satire  at  the  people  who  had  annoyed  him. 
Fortunately  Steele,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was 
still  in  France,  was  of  considerable  assistance,  and 
sent  a  really  brilliant  article  on  the  Union,  fol- 
lowed by  a  few  criticisms  of  individual  speakers. 
Ray  read  these  with  delight: 

"Mr.  W.  C.  Sims  (Christ  Church)  talks  sense 
in  an  engaging  manner. 

"Mr.  C.  E.  Rice  (St.  John's)  talks  fair  sense  in 
a  fairly  engaging  manner. 

"Mr.  J.  Pate  (New  College)  talks  in  a  very  en- 
gaging manner. 

"Mr.  C.  R.  Root  (Christ  Church)  is  a  striking 
orator  in  the  grand — occasionally  the  baby-grand — 
manner. 

"Mr.  G.  R.  Glanford  (Magdalen)  is  a  speaker  of 
considerable  distinction.     He  also  reads  well." 

There  were  a  great  many  more  in  this  manner, 
and  Ray  sent  them  all  off  to  the  Holywell  Press, 


94  PATCHWORK 

and  spent  the  next  few  days  in  correcting 
proofs. 

Meanwhile  he  continued  to  hear  constantly  from 
his  friends.  Steele  wrote  often  from  Paris,  where 
he  appeared  to  be  assisting  in  the  reconstruction 
of  Europe.  Arden  appeared  one  day  at  Curzon 
Street,  looking  more  like  a  Viking  than  ever  in  a 
frock  coat,  and  fell  in  love  with  Lady  Sheldon,  to 
whom  he  dedicated  his  most  sentimental  song. 
Arthur  Stanton  came  to  lunch,  and  carried  off  one 
of  Ray's  Persian  kittens,  which  subsequently  went 
mad,  and  had  to  be  drowned.  Life  was  certainly 
full  of  incident,  and  before  Ray  realised  it  he  found 
Francis  already  packing  his  clothes. 

"How  these  holidays  have  flown!"  sighed  Lady 
Sheldon  as  she  folded  a  tie  and  laid  it  in  a  corner 
of  the  trunk. 

"You  ought  to  say  'vac.,'  mother,  now  I'm  at 
Oxford." 

"Very  well,  but  they  have,  haven't  they?" 

"I  know.  But  you're  coming  up  for  Eights 
Week,  aren't  you?  You  really  must,  you  know. 
You  said  you  would." 

"Of  course  I  will.    Helen  wants  to  come,  too." 

Helen  was  a  cousin  of  Ray's  whom  he  had  known 
ever  since  he  was  a  small  child  in  smocks. 

"Oh,  does  she?  Well,  do  let  her  come.  I  like 
Helen.     Besides,  she  wears  such  charming  clothes." 


RAY  MIXES  HIS  COLOURS         95 

"Yes,  she  does."  Lady  Sheldon  smiled.  "I 
think  myself  she  wears  a  great  deal  too  much." 

"Too  much?"  Ray  laughed.  "Why,  you  said 
the  other  day  she  hadn't  got  enough  on." 

"Oh,  I  didn't  mean  that.  I  meant  too  many. 
She's  sure  to  bring  at  least  eight  evening  frocks, 
and  as  we  shall  only  stay  four  days,  four  of  those 
frocks  will  be  unworn.  Unless,"  she  added,  "she 
falls  in  the  river  once  every  evening." 

"Mother,  you  are  an  absurd  old  thing." 

"I  know,  Ray.     I'm  afraid  I'm  getting  old." 

He  got  to  Oxford  in  time  for  lunch  on  the  next 
day.  It  was  delightful  to  see  his  rooms  once  more, 
with  their  grey  walls,  the  coloured  pierrots  in  their 
white  frames,  and  the  rows  of  books,  powdered  with 
the  faint  dust  of  spring.  As  he  stood  in  the  door- 
way, hat  in  hand,  Ray  regretted  sincerely  that 
this  would  be  his  last  term  in  these  rooms.  Or- 
dinarily he  would  have  had  them  for  at  least 
eighteen  months,  but  to-day  the  crush  was  so 
great  that  he  was  allowed  them  for  two  terms 
only. 

However,  he  must  make  the  most  of  this  term 
while  he  had  it.  The  chestnuts  had  transformed 
the  court  into  a  forest  of  clustering  green,  which 
mercifully  veiled  the  gaunt  and  spinster-like  ugli- 
ness of  the  College,  and  provided  cool  resting  places 
during  hot  hours,  when  it  was  too  stuffy  to  work 


9  6  PATCHWORK 

indoors.  Ray  took  his  flannels  from  his  chest  of 
drawers  and  sallied  out,  clothed  in  white  from 
head  to  foot,  to  see  if  they  had  taken  his  punt  to 
Milham  Ford.  This  was  going  to  be  a  wonderful 
term. 

The  punt  was  safely  ensconced  under  the  willows 
at  the  ford,  and  Ray  made  his  way  back  to  Col- 
lege. He  looked  in  on  the  way  to  see  Waterberry, 
who  greeted  him  effusively  and  told  him  that  the 
subscriptions  for  The  Oxford  Mercury  were  still 
coming  in,  and  that  already  nearly  all  the  initial 
cost  of  the  first  number  was  covered.  That  was 
satisfactory  enough. 

He  strolled  up  the  High  whistling  the  tune  which 
Arden  had  composed  to  Lennox's  "  'Varsity  Rag," 
and  was  greeted  by  Steele,  suit  case  in  hand,  look- 
ing into  the  window  of  a  bookshop. 

"Hullo,  Ray!  Had  a  good  vac?  I  say,  how 
perfectly  brilliant!" 

It  was  the  poster  for  the  Mercury — the  man 
blowing  bubbles  to  the  moon. 

"I'm  so  glad  you  like  it." 

"Why,  have  you  seen  it  before?" 

Ray  laughed.  "My  dear  child,  you  behold  the 
artist." 

"You?  Good  Lord,  I'd  no  idea."  He  looked 
at  the  picture  again.  "Oh  yes,  I  see  your  initials 
in  the  corner.  You  are  a  most  horribly  versatile 
person." 


RAY  MIXES  HIS  COLOURS  97 

"Horribly  isn't  the  word  for  it,"  said  Ray,  tak- 
ing his  arm.     "Where  are  you  going  now?" 

"Back  to  College." 

"Well,  walk  with  me  as  far  as  Holywell.  I've 
got  to  go  and  see  The  his  people." 

The  chestnuts  over  the  high  wall  at  Exeter 
seemed  to  give  them  benediction  as  they  passed 
underneath. 

"This  is  going  to  be  a  wonderful  term,"  said 
Steele. 

"I  know.  I've  said  that  so  many  times  myself 
that  I  shall  begin  to  doubt  it  soon." 

Steele  smiled.  "Do  you  think  you'll  have  any 
time  left  over?" 

"Why?" 

"Well,  I've  got  a  new  plan  on." 

"What,  another?" 

"Yes,  it's  simply  terrific." 

"I  say,  how  splendid!     What  on  earth  is  it?" 

"I  can't  tell  you^  for  a  day  or  two,  because  I 
want  to  think  it  out.  But  we'll  work  it  together. 
I  couldn't  possibly  do  it  without  you.  United  we 
stand,  divided,  etc." 

Ray  nodded.  "A  sort  of  Lloyd  George,  Bonar- 
Law  business." 

"Which  would  you  be?"  laughed  Steele. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  They're  both  pretty  inef- 
fective. Anyway,  here's  Holywell,  and  I  must  fly. 
Tell  me  as  soon  as  you  can." 


9  8  PATCHWORK 

"Of  course.    So  long." 

At  The  Isis  offices,  too,  he  found  everything  go- 
ing well.  Every  one  seemed  pleased  to  see  him, 
and  Baines  was  most  enthusiastic  over  the  copy 
Ray  had  sent  during  the  vac.  "We  haven't  had 
anything  like  this — oh,  not  for  years/'  he  said  fer- 
vently; "we'll  make  The  Isis  hum." 

Ray  thought  that  he  would  probably  have  to  do 
most  of  the  humming  himself. 

He  smiled.  "Yes,  we  must  get  it  going  thoroughly 
this  term,  because  I  shall  probably  only  take  it 
on  for  one  term." 

Baines'  face  fell.  "Oh,  Mr.  Sheldon,"  he  said, 
"you're  not  going  down?" 

"Oh,  rather  not,  but  I  expect  it'll  take  up  a  good 
deal  of  my  time,  and  you  see,  I've  got  a  good 
many  other  things  on.  .  .  ."  Baines  nodded  rather 
despondently.  "Still,"  said  Ray,  "I'll  see  you 
through  this  term  all  right.  What  I  want  to  do 
is  to  show  the  sort  of  attitude  the  paper  should 
adopt.  I  don't  want  it  to  degenerate  into  a  sort 
of  semi-comic,  semi-jingo  business." 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Baines,  not  knowing  quite 
what  he  meant. 

"And  anyway,  when  I  drop  it,  I'll  put  some- 
body good  in  my  place.  That'll  be  all  right,  won't 
it?" 

"Oh,  quite,  Mr.  Sheldon.  Though  I  doubt  if 
we'll  get  copy  like  this  again." 


RAY  MIXES  HIS  COLOURS         99 

Ray  laughed  and  left  Baines  at  the  top  of  the 
stairs,  looking  with  paternal  affection  at  a  bundle 
of  proof-sheets. 

He  went  back  to  Balliol  feeling  at  peace  with 
all  mankind. 


CHAPTER  VI 

COTERIE 

THE  first  number  of  The  his  was  a  brilliant 
success.  It  was  delightful  to  see  the  streets 
splashed  with  the  cheery  dark  blue  of  its  paper 
covers,  and  to  see  undergraduate  after  undergradu- 
ate pass  by,  shading  his  eyes  from  the  sun  as  he 
imbibed  Ray's  witticisms  in  the  leading  article. 
Ray  bought  ten  copies  and  sent  them  to  his  friends. 
He  found  Tugly  reading  one  in  Balliol  quad.  "A 
most  scintillating  production,  Ray.  I  wonder  how 
you  manage  to  find  time  for  the  historical  research 
which  was  so  evident  in  your  last  'collecer.'  " 

"So  do  I,  Tugly,"  laughed  Ray. 

Of  course  work  was  out  of  the  question  on  days 
like  this.  He  felt  capable  of  editing  dozens  of 
papers,  and  founding  innumerable  societies,  but  it 
was  impossible  to  sit  down  and  try  seriously  to  take 
an  interest  in  Oliver  Cromwell,  or  in  Aristotle's 
enunciation  of  the  "good  life."  After  all,  the  "good 
life"  merely  meant  the  development  to  the  full  of 
all  one's  faculties,  including  the  physical,  and  that 
was  what  he  was  doing  now. 

How  superb  it  was,  on  mornings  when  the  mist 
ioo 


COTERIE  101 

only  gave  promise  of  greater  heat  to  come,  to  get 
into  a  pair  of  old  flannel  trousers,  to  jump  on  a 
bicycle  and  to  skim  down  to  Milham  Ford,  shirt 
open,  the  wind  in  his  ears,  past  scores  of  laborious 
undergraduates  trudging  to  their  dusty  lectures. 
On  these  river  mornings  he  would  take  some  lunch, 
and  would  soothe  his  conscience  by  throwing  some 
books  on  to  the  cushions,  and  lying  back,  would 
turn  over  their  pages  lazily,  while  the  smoke  from 
his  cigarette  drifted  up  in  quivering  spirals  to  the 
tangled  branches  overhead.  Aristotle  seemed  by 
his  clarity  and  by  the  perfect  marshalling  of  his 
arguments  to  introduce  himself  more  gracefully  in 
the  open  air  than  in  the  stuffy  confines  of  a  sitting- 
room,  and  even  some  of  the  ponderous  weight  of 
Maine  seemed  lightened  by  these  river  breezes  that 
ruffled  the  water  and  drifted  in,  cool  and  clover 
blown,  from  the  open  fields. 

Soon  after  The  his  came  The  Oxford  Mercury, 
and  both  Ray  and  Steele  were  so  overwhelmed  with 
congratulations  that  the  river  seemed  to  be  the  only 
place  where  they  could  escape. 

"It  really  is  rather  a  brilliant  first  number," 
said  Steele,  turning  over  the  yellow  cover. 

Ray  lay  back  and  pulled  lazily  at  the  rope  which 
fastened  their  punt  to  the  bank.  "Yes,  I  know. 
I'm  awfully  glad  we  did  it,  aren't  you?" 

"Rather.  This  article  of  Barroni's  is  a  work  of 
genius." 


102  PATCHWORK 

"Well,  Barroni  is  a  genius."  Barroni  was  Presi- 
dent of  the  Union,  and  was  later  to  play  an  im- 
portant part  in  Ray's  Oxford  career. 

Steele  smiled.  "I  know.  I'm  afraid  he'll  never 
be  a  'creature.' " 

"Barroni?  A  creature?  Good  Lord,  no."  He 
yawned.  The  heat  was  really  rather  oppressing, 
even  in  this  arabesque  of  breeze  and  shadow.  "Do 
read  some  of  it  to  me.  I've  hardly  had  time  to 
read  it  properly  myself  yet.  .  .  ." 

"All  right." 

Steele  sat  up  and  read  in  a  clear  incisive  voice: 

"It  was  our  sad  amusement  during  our  five  years 
of  exile  to  think  of  Oxford  as  we  knew  her,  and 
as  we  should  know  her  again.  The  children  of 
Oxford  in  the  fields  of  Flanders  would  surely  inspire 
another  one  hundred  and  thirty-seventh  Psalm. 
The  routine,  the  river,  even  the  priggish  discipline 
of  the  place  were  a  pleasant  memory.  By  compar- 
ison with  our  present  state  they  were  a  golden  vi- 
sion of  the  future. 

"We  came  back.  But  it  was  by  the  waters  of 
Isis  that  we  sat  down  and  wept  when  we  remem- 
bered Oxford.  In  truth  we  were  ill  at  ease  in  the 
Zion  of  our  longing.  A  new  generation  had  sprung 
up  in  the  land — a  generation  puny  in  numbers  and, 
perhaps  for  that  very  reason,  more  sedulous  of  dons 
and  ritual,  more  pharisaic  than  the  Pharisees — and 
we  had  come  'as  ghosts  to  trouble  joy.'    And  so  we 


COTERIE  103 

hardly  recognised  Oxford.  But  we,  too,  were  un- 
recognisable. We  had  forgotten,  if  we  had  ever 
known,  that  we  were  Oxford.  .  .  ." 

"Isn't  this  exactly  like  Barroni?"  said  Steele. 
"A  wonderful  sort  of  glittering  richness."  He 
looked  at  the  article  again.  "It's  full  of  good  stuff 
— for  instance:  'Too  long  have  we  allowed  the  past 
of  Oxford  to  be  her  present' — and  'There  is  nothing 
really  old  about  Oxford  unless  it  be  the  dons.'  And 
I  love  this  bit  at  the  end :  'Oxford  belongs  to  Youth, 
to  Enthusiasm,  to  Impulse,  and  to  Laughter.  She 
is  as  young  as  her  youngest  undergraduate  .  .  .'  " 
He  put  the  book  down.  "It's  too  hot  to  read 
any  more,"  he  said.  "Besides,  I  wanted  to  talk  to 
you  about  the  new  scheme." 

Ray  sat  up.  "Good  Lord!  of  course.  I'd 
forgotten  all  about  it." 

"It's  to  be  a  club,"  said  Steele.  "A  vast 
political  club."  Ray  listened  intently  while  he  out- 
lined the  idea.  Papers  were  all  very  well,  but  they 
wanted  something  more  than  that.  They  wanted  a 
great  organisation  of  young  men  who  could  meet 
and  band  together  to  discuss  and  to  endeavour  to 
solve  some  of  the  appalling  problems  with  which 
youth  had  been  saddled  by  age. 

"What  about  the  Union,  though?"  asked  Ray. 

"Oh,    the    Union's    no    good.      It's    a   totally 

different  thing.     There's  no  unity  about  the  Union. 

You've  got  last-ditch  Tories  and   Bolshevists   all 


i<>4  PATCHWORK 

mixed  up  together  in  one  screaming  muddle.     We 
want  to  get  hold  of  anybody  who's  really  progres- 
sive.    Of  course  I'm  a  Liberal  really.  .  .  ." 
"Anybody  with  any  decency  is,"  replied  Ray. 
"But  it's  got  to  be  a  new  Liberalism,  d'you  see?" 
"Rather.     It's  a  magnificent  scheme." 
They  discussed  it  at  length.     Their  ideas  were 
still  vague,  still  shadowy,  but  behind  them  all  there 
was  that  intangible  spiritual  yearning  for  a  better 
world  which  was  animating  millions  of  young  men 
all  over  Europe,  who  had  seen  the  ideals  for  which 
they  had  given  their  blood  mocked  and  trampled 
upon  by  a  cynical  and  disillusioned  band  of  senile 
diplomatists.     To    Ray    it    appealed    particularly, 
because,  apart  from  the  ordinary  political  element, 
which  would  be  entertaining  enough,  it  would  be 
an  organisation  which  might  give  voice,  at  long  last, 
to  the  cry  of  youth.     He  had,  just  then,  a  hatred 
for  anything  that  was  old,  as  he  explained  to  Steele. 
"Yes,  I  know — we're  out  to  tilt  against  the  sort 
of  spirit  that  talks  about  the  'wisdom  and  experience 
of  age.' " 

"'The  wisdom  and  experience  of  age!'"  Ray 
leant  forward  indignantly.  "Good  God!  It  makes 
me  feel  murderous.  There's  a  monument  to  that 
in  France.  Age!  Of  course,  some  old  men  are 
perfect  angels,  but  it's  youth — youth  that  the 
world  wants.  We're  young  now,  and  that's  why 
what  we  say  is  worth  listening  to.     I'm  sick  and 


COTERIE  105 

I'm  tired  of  being  exploited.  Youth  has  always 
been  exploited.  It's  always  had  to  fight — fight  in 
wars  it  doesn't  understand  and  doesn't  control. 
And  then  we're  told  that  it's  all  for  our  own  good. 
Blasted  old  poets,  who  ought  to  be  ducked  in  slime, 
write  sonnets  about  'The  happy  warrior,'  and  filthy 
old  men  slobber  about  and  say  that  'to  be  young  is 
very  heaven.  .  .  .  ' "  He  choked  with  indigna- 
tion. 

Steele  looked  at  him  admiringly.  "I  really 
believe  that  if  I  put  you  on  a  pedestal  you'd  convert 
the  whole  world." 

Ray  laughed  hopelessly.  "It'd  be  a  pretty  big 
business,  I'm  afraid.  Never  mind,  though,  we're 
doing  our  bit." 

"We  certainly  are." 

"I  suppose  we'll  have  to  start  in  rather  a  small 
way?" 

Steele  nodded.  "Yes,  we  shall.  And  we'll 
have  to  start,  as  a  nucleus,  with  a  sort  of  ordinary 
political  club." 

"Liberal?" 

"Yes,  the  new  Liberalism." 

"The  new  Liberalism!"  Ray  leant  back  and 
stretched  out  his  arms  to  a  cloudless  sky. 

The  first  meeting  to  discuss  the  new  club  was 
held  two  days  later.  Ray  met  Steele  in  Balliol  lodge 
after  Hall,  and  they  strolled  along  to  St.  John's 


106  PATCHWORK 

together.  A  little  group  was  waiting  for  them  at 
the  gate. 

The  people  whom  Ray  and  Steele  had  attracted 
round  them  were,  by  common  consent,  among  the 
most  brilliant  whom  Oxford  at  that  period  could 
produce.  Leaning  against  the  gateway,  with  a  mas- 
sive brow  and  a  weighty,  though  as  yet  beardless, 
jaw,  was  Whitety.  Whitely  was  a  scholar  of  New 
College,  with  pronounced  views  on  God  and  mar- 
riage, against  both  of  which  British  institutions  he 
cherished  a  fierce  resentment.  He  always  gave  the 
appearance  of  having  descended  straight  from 
Olympus,  and  Steele  had  said  of  one  of  his  speeches 
at  the  Union  that  "Mr.  Whitely  addressed  the  House 
with  a  resonant  voice,  and  in  a  manner  which  be- 
trayed his  divine  origin."  Ray  was  one  of  the  few 
people  who  really  liked  him,  because  he  was  almost 
the  only  person  who  could  make  him  laugh. 

Next  to  him  was  Rodd,  another  New  Collegian, 
standing  in  the  gate.  He  was  always  standing  in 
some  gate  or  other  (in  a  metaphorical  sense),  but 
whether  from  bad  luck  or  lack  of  conviction,  he 
never  seemed  to  penetrate  to  the  inner  temple.  He 
was  on  this  evening  wearing  a  red  tie.  Ray  foresaw 
that  there  would  therefore  be  difficulty.  A  Bol- 
shevik in  their  midst  would  probably  cause  trouble. 

Next  to  Rodd,  and  endeavouring,  quite  unsuc- 
cessfully, to  talk  him  down,  was  George  Henry,  a 
handsome  boy  of  about  nineteen  with  enormous 


COTERIE  107 

lambent  eyes  which  seemed  to  soften,  to  a  certain 
extent,  what  would  otherwise  have  been  an  almost 
aggressive  face.  He  was  a  Liberal  to  his  very 
straight  backbone,  and  would  undertake,  without 
the  smallest  hesitation,  to  draw  up  endless  circulars, 
sign  innumerable  letters,  and  make  a  new  Liberal 
programme  every  night,  if  he  felt  that  by  such 
activities  he  would  be  furthering  the  Liberal  cause. 
The  only  other  amusing  person  in  the  group 
was  Thomas  Quill,  in  every  way  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  characters  in  Oxford.  Tall,  drooping, 
clean  shaven,  with  a  shock  of  straight  hair,  he  would 
have  been  striking  enough  however  he  had  been 
dressed,  but  he  chose  to  accentuate  his  peculiarity 
by  bright  check  Norfolk  jackets  and  strange  silk 
neckties.  A  wonderful  cinnamon-coloured  hand- 
kerchief usually  drooped  pathetically  from  his 
breast-pocket  and  another  peeped  shyly  from  under 
his  orange  shirt  cuff.  However,  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  thing  about  him  was  his  voice,  which 
was  delicate  and  fluting,  very  high  and  soft — the 
nearest  approach  to  a  swan-song  which  Ray  had 
ever  heard.  Tommy,  being  very  comfortably  off, 
never  exerted  himself  much,  except  to  write  a  few 
exceedingly  precious  poems  in  the  freest  of  free 
verse.  Later,  by  a  miracle  which  has  never  yet 
been  explained,  he  suddenly  stood  for  the  Presidency 
of  the  Union  and  was  elected.  But  even  before 
that,  he  was  known  by  every  one  in  Oxford,  and 


108  PATCHWORK 

liked  too.  He  was  extraordinarily  kind-hearted, 
and  would  ask  successive  batches  of  Indians  to 
lunch,  not  through  any  abstract  belief  in  Anglo- 
Indian  friendship,  but  merely  because  he  hated  to 
see  how  they  were  neglected  by  the  rest  of  the 
undergraduates. 

As  soon  as  Ray  and  Steele  approached,  the  faces 
of  the  watchers  at  the  gate  seemed  to  brighten  and 
to  light  up  with  a  fresh  inspiration.  Ray  smiled 
as  he  saw  the  impression  they  made  on  these 
people.  He  knew  little  about  politics.  Liberalism 
was  to  him  at  present  merely  a  vague  though  pas- 
sionate faith.  He  had  not  nearly  so  profound  a 
knowledge,  for  instance,  of  the  intricate  industrial 
matters  of  which  Rodd  was  talking  in  harsh,  incisive 
little  sentences.  But  he  had,  more  than  any  of 
them,  a  burning  idealism,  a  fierce  resentment  at  the 
present  order,  and  a  capacity  for  putting  his  case 
with  a  brilliance  and  a  fluency  which  was  rare 
enough  in  any  society,  young  or  old. 

After  the  usual  interchange  of  greetings  they 
made  their  way  to  Barroni's  rooms,  clambered  up 
the  stairs,  knocked  at  the  door,  and  trooped  in — 
Steele  heading  the  procession,  closely  followed  by 
Ray. 

Barroni's  rooms,  which  tradition  says  were  occu- 
pied by  Charles  I,  were  perhaps  the  most  magnif- 
icent rooms  inhabited  by  any  undergraduate  in 
Oxford.     There  were  two  of  them,  each  tall  and 


COTERIE  109 

panelled  and  furnished  with  oak  made  black  by  the 
passing  of  three  dark  centuries.  They  passed 
through  the  outer  room,  which  was  now  used  as  a 
dining-room,  and  found  Barroni  inside,  standing  in 
front  of  the  fireplace  talking  affably  to  a  little  bald- 
headed  professor.  It  was  Professor  Milton,  whose 
business  was  archaeology  and  whose  passion  was 
politics,  and  who  had  been  called  in  at  the  last 
moment  to  give  a  touch  of  authority  to  the 
proceedings. 

Barroni  himself  was  one  of  those  people  who 
one  feels  instinctively  were  born  for  the  softest 
plush  and  the  brightest  gilt.  He  was  a  Jew,  with 
the  blood  of  a  noble  Spanish  family  in  his  veins,  and 
like  all  the  finest  of  his  great  race,  he  was  extremely 
proud  of  the  fact.  Laudably  ambitious,  and  with  a 
brilliant,  limber  mind,  he  reminded  one  of  a  charac- 
ter in  a  Disraeli  novel.  In  fact,  he  seemed  to  have 
modelled  himself  to  a  remarkable  extent  on  Disraeli. 
His  speeches,  which  were  superb,  were  loaded  with 
epigrams  which  glittered  all  the  more  brightly  for 
being  delivered  in  a  monotonous,  somewhat  nasal 
voice.  His  perorations  rolled  out  like  the  unfold- 
ing of  a  heavy  tapestry.  He  was  a  born  speaker,  a 
born  politician,  and  with  all  his  brilliance,  a  generous 
and  a  lovable  figure.  He  had  dramatised  his  career 
at  Oxford  with  an  enviable  success.  He  now  found 
himself  President  of  the  Union,  and  the  possessor 
of  the  most  beautiful  rooms  in  Oxford.     Hence  the 


no  PATCHWORK 

patrician  attitude  into  which  he  had  curved  him'self 
in  front  of  the  fire. 

"Ah,  the  deputation,"  he  said,  advancing 
courteously.  "We  must  bring  stools  for  the 
ambassadors."  He  moved  a  heavy  sofa  a  fraction 
of  an  inch  nearer  the  fireplace,  and  helped  to  arrange 
a  purple  cushion  to  better  advantage.  'And  how 
is  Raymond?  Professor,  this  is  Mr.  Raymond 
Sheldon,  the  Northcliffe-Paderewski-Nyjinski  and  a 
few  other  things  of  Oxford." 

Ray  bowed.  He  was  getting  used  to  that  sort 
of  introduction  now. 

"Ah,  Steele,  too."  He  put  his  hand  pleasantly 
on  Steele's  shoulder.  Barroni  was  courtesy  itself. 
He  opened  a  magnum  of  champagne  which  soon 
disappeared,  and  then  produced  Turkish  coffee, 
cigars,  and  old  brandy.  Half  an  hour  slipped  by  in 
this  way  and  it  grew  so  dark  that  the  lamps  were 
lit,  and  flickered  through  their  carved  Venetian 
bronze  into  the  circle  of  faces  below. 

Eventually  the  little  bald  man  in  the  corner 
stirred. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said,  and  cleared  his  throat, 
"perhaps  it  would  be  advisable  to  come  more 
strictly  to  the  point." 

The  conversation  during  the  last  ten  minutes  had 
been  devoted  exclusively  to  Lord  Northcliffe. 

Barroni  bowed  and  resumed  his  attitude  in  front 
of  the  empty  grate. 


COTERIE  in 

"I  understand,"  said  Professor  Milton,  "that 
these  young  gentlemen  desire  to  form  a  political 
club  of  more  or  less,  shall  we  say,  'progressive' 
principles?" 

He  looked  at  Barroni,  who  inclined  his  head 
with  a  gesture  which  might  have  meant  everything 
or  nothing. 

"That  was  the  original  idea,"  said  Steele. 

The  Professor  peered  at  him  through  the  gloom. 
"Ah,  Mr.  Steele,  is  it  not?" 

Steele  nodded. 

"You  were,  I  believe,  the  originator  of  the 
entire  scheme?" 

"Mr.  Sheldon  and  I,"  corrected  Steele. 

The  Professor  gazed  in  the  direction  of  Ray, 
who  was  lying  on  the  seat  by  the  window,  smoking 
a  cigarette,  and  blowing  cool  drifts  of  smoke  out  in 
the  night  air. 

"Then,  perhaps,"  he  said,  "one  of  you  had 
better  outline  the  scheme  which  you  have  in 
mind." 

"Shall  I,  Ray?"    Steele  looked  at  him  eagerly. 

"Yes,  please  do." 

Ray  felt  his  enthusiasm,  for  the  moment,  over- 
shadowed. This  atmosphere  was  so  perfect  that  he 
was  far  more  inclined  to  dream  than  to  act.  The 
ideals  of  which,  two  days  ago,  he  had  spoken  so 
fervently  on  the  river  seemed  now  to  be  merged  in 
the  shadows  that  stained  restlessly  the  dark  corners, 


ii2  PATCHWORK 

the  procession  of  life  which  came  from  Steele's  lips 
seemed  barren  and  unreal  compared  with  the  starlit 
garden  outside  the  window.  However,  Steele  spoke 
very  well.  All  the  little  group  of  faces  seemed 
concentrated  on  him.  How  strangely  unreal  they 
looked  in  the  flickering  light;  the  whole  room 
indeed  seemed  a  little  unreal.  Perhaps  it  was 
because  he  was  so  close  to  the  window.  Outside 
the  long,  still  lawns  of  St.  John's  were  barely  dis- 
cernible in  the  dark.  Occasionally  an  undergraduate 
would  crunch  by  on  the  gravel  beneath,  and  a  scrap 
of  conversation  or  a  snatch  of  song  would  drift  up. 
And  then  there  would  be  silence  again,  broken  only 
by  Steele's  voice. 

What  was  he  talking  about?  Youth — Liberalism 
— the  chaos  of  the  war — the  League  of  Nations — 
Ray  listened  to  them  in  a  dream.  He  knew  that  in 
a  day  or  two  he  would  plunge  into  the  contest  with 
renewed  vigour,  but  for  the  moment  he  wanted  to 
stop  still  in  this  beautiful  room,  with  its  huge  walls, 
and  its  ceiling  of  wrought  plaster-work,  spattered 
with  shadows  and  broken  lights. 

Suddenly  Steele  stopped  talking.  Ray  rubbed 
his  eyes  and  sat  up.  He  supposed  that  he  would 
have  to  pay  some  attention  to  what  they  were 
saying  now. 

Steele's  speech  had  evidently  been  well  received. 
However,  there  were  one  or  two  exceptions:     Rodd, 


COTERIE  113 

for  instance,  had  been  audibly  snorting,  and  broke 
in  now,  with  a  slight  stutter. 

"Then  I  understand  that  this  is  to  be  a  capitalist 
club?"  he  said. 

A  slight  sensation.  "How  do  you  mean?" 
said  Steele. 

"Well,  apparently  you  repudiate  any  form  of 
nationalisation.  .  .  ." 

Steele  smiled.  "Not  necessarily,"  he  said. 
"The  Liberal  attitude  is  to  judge  a  thing  absolutely 
on  its  merits." 

"Well,  then,  it  is  to  be  a  Liberal  Club?" 

Steele  sat  up  in  his  chair.  "Certainly,  I  think 
— Liberal"  (he  intoned  the  adjective  slightly) 
"in  the  best  sense  of  the  word." 

Rodd  snorted.  "As  far  as  I  know  'Liberal' 
means  the  same  thing  anywhere,  and  personally  I'm 
afraid  I  hold  the  same  views  about  Liberals  as  The 
Daily  Herald." 

"What  views  does  The  Daily  Herald  hold?" 
said  Steele. 

"That  the  Liberal  party  is  a  disgraced  and  a 
disgraceful  party."  Having  said  this,  he  collapsed 
like  an  evaporated  balloon. 

Professor  Milton  rustled  uneasily  from  his 
corner. 

"Really,"  he  said,  and  cleared  his  throat  once 
again,  "I  think  Mr.  Rodd  is  a  little  violent.  I 
have  been  a  Liberal  all  my  life"   ("Hear,  hear!" 


ii4  PATCHWORK 

from  several  corners  of  the  room).  "And  I  do  not 
feel  either  disgraced  or  particularly — er,  disgrace- 
ful." He  gave  a  little  apologetic  smile  to  Rodd. 
As  he  made  no  reply  the  Professor  went  on.  .  .  . 
"Of  course  I  realise  that  in  a  club  of  this  nature  we 
do  not  wish  to  impose  stereotyped  views  on  our 
members.  Far  from  that.  But  I  do  feel  that  we 
should  exclude,  for  the  time  being  at  any  rate,  the 
more  extreme  kind  of  Socialist."  He  smiled  again, 
a  weary  little  smile,  and  directed  his  eyes  for  a 
moment  to  the  red  glow  of  Rodd's  necktie. 

"How  do  the  other  members  feel  about  it?" 
said  the  Professor,  adjusting  his  eyeglasses,  and 
glancing  vaguely  round  the  room. 

They  had  hardly  time  to  reply,  for  Rodd  chimed 
in  again.  "I  don't  know  how  other  people  feel 
about  it,"  he  said.  "But  personally,  I  do  know  that 
I  could  never  join  a  club  of  this  sort." 

Everybody  seemed  struck  dumb  by  this 
ultimatum.  Rodd  was  a  very  senior  man  in  the 
university  and  was  regarded  as  a  great  power  in  the 
more  intellectual  circles. 

Suddenly  Ray,  from  his  seat  in  the  window, 
said  in  a  very  blase  voice,  without  turning  his  eyes 
from  his  contemplation  of  the  garden,  "Then 
why  don't  you  form  a  club  of  your  own?" 

Everybody  looked  gratefully  to  Ray.  They  did 
not  seem  to  have  thought  of  this  rather  obvious 
alternative,  or  else  they  had  not  had  the  courage  to 


COTERIE  115 

propose  it.  Rodd  snorted  again.  "Thank  you, 
Sheldon,"  he  said,  "for  your  advice." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Ray.  "It  seems  obvious, 
doesn't  it?"  He  smiled  at  Rodd  sweetly.  "You 
apparently  seem  to  disagree  with  something  that 
Steele  said,  so  naturally  you  wouldn't  want  to  join 
us.  By  the  way,  what  was  it  that  you  disagreed 
with?" 

Professor  Milton  rustled  approvingly.  "Yes," 
he  said,  "I  think  that  it  would  be  interesting  to 
know  that." 

Rodd  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "I  really  don't 
think  I  need  go  into  all  that.  It's  far  too  long 
a  question.  Anyway,  I  know  that  I  shouldn't 
agree,  so  I'll  say  good  night."  He  jumped  up  from 
his  chair,  shook  hands  with  Barroni,  who  stroked 
him  affably  on  the  shoulder  with  a  "So  sorry,  old 
man,"  and  then  bowed  and  went  out. 

Everybody  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when  he 
had  gone.  Business  proceeded  apace.  The  world's 
future  was  outlined  in  words  glowing  with  youth 
and  enthusiasm.  Everything  was  settled  except 
the  name. 

"What  about  calling  it  simply  the  Liberal 
Club?"  said  Steele.  That  was  vetoed.  It  wasn't 
going  to  be  simply  a  Liberal  Club — it  was  going  to 
be  a  much  bigger  thing  than  that. 

"Well,  the  Progressive  Club?"  suggested  George 
Henry    doubtfully.     A    chorus    of    "Oh,    Lord's" 


u6  PATCHWORK 

quickly  shoved   this   suggestion   out  of   the   way. 

"The  New  Crusaders?"  fluted  Tommy  Quill 
from  the  floor  by  the  fireplace. 

"Rather  esoteric,  don't  you  think?"  said 
Whitely. 

Perhaps  it  was.  Tommy  ran  his  hands  through 
his  hair.     Yes,  it  was  a  little  esoteric. 

"The  Oxford  Reform  Club?"  suggested  Whitely. 

That  was  repudiated  as  savouring  too  much  of 
dry-as-dust  party  politics.  For  the  same  reason 
they  rejected  Barroni's  proffered  "Oxford  Eighty 
Club"  and  Professor  Milton's  "Oxford  New 
Liberal  Club." 

It  seemed  hopeless.  What  a  damned  nuisance 
titles  were!  For  some  moments  there  was  no 
sound  except  that  which  came  from  the  heavy 
breathing  of  Whitely,  who  had  adenoids. 

Suddenly  Ray  spoke  again.  He  had  been 
looking  out  at  the  sky,  which  was  thick  laid  with 
stars. 

"What  about  The  Star  Club'?"  he  said. 

Nobody  answered.  They  were  not  sure  whether 
to  reject  it  en  masse  or  whether  to  welcome  it  as,  at 
any  rate,  original.  There  was  something  in  the 
late  hour  which  made  the  idea  of  a  Star  Club  more 
acceptable  than  it  might  have  been  in  the  middle 
of  the  day. 

The  Professor  spoke.  "I  think,"  he  said, 
"that  is  a  charming  idea.     I  should  very  much  like 


COTERIE  117 

to  belong  to  a  Star  Club.     It  sounds — well,  just 
what  it  should  sound." 

Tommy  Quill  nodded.  "Bright  star,  would  I 
were  steadfast  as  thou  art.  .  .  ."  His  melancholy 
treble  made  every  one  laugh,  and  the  suggestion 
was  carried  nem.  con. 

"I  only  hope  nobody  thinks  it's  got  anything  to 
do  with  astronomy,"  said  Ray. 

"They  won't  think  that  if  you're  in  it,  old 
boy,"  Steele  replied. 

There  was  no  time  to  settle  anything  else, 
except  that  Steele  should  be  President  and  Ray 
Vice-President.  They  made  their  way  out,  down 
the  dark  stairs,  across  the  court.  A  sleepy  porter 
opened  the  gate  for  them,  and  they  walked  under 
the  trees  in  the  Giler,  towards  Balliol. 

"What  shall  I  have  to  do  as  Vice-President  of 
this  thing?"  said  Ray,  as  they  got  in. 

"Oh,  nothing  much." 

Ray  yawned.  "I  don't  suppose  I  should  do  it 
if  I  had." 

Steele  smiled.  "Well,  we'll  see,"  he  said. 
"Good  night,  Ray,  and  thanks  awfully." 

"Good  night." 

Ray  went  to  his  room  feeling  very  tired.  How- 
ever, he  was  pleased  with  his  evening's  work. 
Those  rooms  of  Barroni's  were  delightful.  Besides 
the  club  might  be  a  big  thing.  He  saw  visions  of 
himself  leading  the  world,  through  the  Star  Club, 


nS  PATCHWORK 

to  new  possibilities  of  civilisation.  The  voice 
of  youth,  the  courage  of  youth,  the  idealism  of  youth 
— what  might  they  not  achieve? 

However,  he  realised  that  if  he  had  many  more 
late  nights,  he  would  grow  old  before  his  time,  so 
he  put  out  the  light  and  went  to  bed  with  the 
moon  shining  on  his  pillow. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BLUE  AND  SILVER 

BLUE  skies  and  silver  dawns,  shadows  of  grey 
and  lavender,  it  seemed  almost  sacrilege  to 
spend  so  much  time  on  politics  amid  such  beauty. 
But  politics  were  to  Ray,  and  to  some  of  the  young 
men  by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  in  themselves 
a  thing  of  beauty.  Where  there  is  a  burning  ideal, 
and  where  there  is  the  impulse  and  the  inspiration 
of  youth,  even  the  barren  problems  of  industry  and 
finance  may  be  transmuted  into  something  rich 
and  glowing.  They  might  be  as  dry  as  dust,  but  it 
is,  after  all,  from  dust  that  sunsets  are  made. 

Besides,  there  was  all  the  delightful  histrionic 
side  of  the  business,  and  a  very  pleasant  sense  of 
importance  and  publicity.  Posters  of  the  Star 
Club,  announcing  their  principles  and  their  pro- 
gramme, were  all  over  Oxford  in  a  fortnight, 
decorated  at  the  top  with  a  little  blue  star,  the 
emblem  of  the  club. 

Ray  found  Steele  regarding  one  of  these  posters 
in  Balliol  lodge. 

"Looks  rather  well,  doesn't  it?" 

"Yes,  charming." 

"It's  going  to  make  every  other  society  in 
119 


i2o  PATCHWORK 

the  place  pull  up  their  socks.  The  Union,  for 
instance.  By  the  way,  are  you  going  to  the  Union 
to-night?" 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  going." 

"Oh,  do  come,  I'm  speaking  on  the  paper." 

Ray  raised  his  eyebrows.  "Really?  Oh  well, 
I  think  I  will  then." 

So  Steele  was  speaking  on  the  paper!  Ray 
felt,  for  a  brief  moment,  rather  jealous.  He  had 
himself  neglected  the  Union,  and  not  only  had 
he  never  spoken  there,  but  he  hardly  ever  went  to 
the  debates.  And  yet,  the  Union  was  in  many 
ways  the  centre  of  Oxford  political  life.  What 
a  fool  he  had  been  to  neglect  it!  He  remembered 
now  that  the  Presidency  of  the  Union  was  in  some 
ways  the  highest  honour  which  Oxford  had  to  win. 
Salisbury,  Gladstone,  Asquith,  Birkenhead,  Robert 
Cecil,  what  masses  of  great  men  had,  in  their  time, 
been  President  of  the  Union!  Why  shouldn't  he 
follow  in  their  footsteps? 

He  peered  among  the  fluttering  list  of  notices 
to  see  what  was  the  motion  for  that  evening. 

"That  this  House  would  deplore  the  introduction 
of  Prohibition  into  this  country. 

"Moved  by  Mr.  C.  A.  Steele  (Balliol). 

"Opposed  by  Mr.  C.  R.  Root   (Christ  Church). 

"Mr.  L.  E.  N.  S.  Marchmont  (Christ  Church) 
will  speak  third. 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  121 

"Mr.    C.    T.    Knight     (Worcester)    will    speak 
fourth. 

"L.  Barron i,  President." 

Good  Lord!  that  all  those  people  should 
speak  and  he  should  remain  silent!  Ray  really 
felt  for  a  moment  rather  indignant.  He  would 
certainly  speak  to-night,  if  possible  sixth;  and  he 
despatched  a  note  to  Barroni's  rooms  in  St.  John's, 
requesting  that  he  might  be  given  a  chance,  and 
asking  him  to  dinner  at  the  same  time,  to  make 
assurance  doubly  sure. 

That  night  he  went  to  the  Union  alone  in 
order  that  he  might  form  his  own  impression,  and 
as  he  looked  round  this  great  hall  he  felt  that 
here  was  another  kingdom  which  he  might  conquer. 

The  benches  were  crowded  with  undergraduates, 
for  they  anticipated  a  rag,  and  naturally  the 
"government"  side  was  far  fuller  than  the  "opposi- 
tion" among  which  he  himself  sat.  He  saw 
Whitely  and  a  circle  of  fellow  New  Collegians  on 
the  opposite  bench. 

"Hello,  Ray,  are  you  drunk,  or  are  you  really 
'Pussyfoot'?" 

"Both,  probably,"  he  laughed  back. 

"Are  you  going  to  speak?" 

"Yes,  I  rather  think  I  shall  if  I  get  a  chance." 

Whitely  shuffled  his  feet  with  delight.  "I 
say,    Ray's   going   to   speak!"     Ray   noticed   the 


122  PATCHWORK 

expression  of  inquiry  on  their  faces.  It  was  evident 
that  they  all  knew  him,  although  he  had  no  idea 
who  they  were. 

He  sighed  and  resumed  his  observation  of  the 
room.  It  was  long  and  very  lofty,  with  a  gallery, 
and  would  seat  a  thousand  without  undue  crowding. 
On  the  floor  of  the  House,  against  the  opposite  wall, 
were  three  busts  of  ex-Presidents,  Gladstone, 
Salisbury,  and  Asquith,  and  the  walls  were  hung 
with  photographs  of  past  officers  of  the  Society, 
young  men  in  check  trousers  and  side  whiskers, 
bishops,  archbishops,  nonentities,  statesmen,  journal- 
ists, all  those  men  who  sought  and  found  in  Oxford 
not  merely  the  life  of  a  recluse,  but  a  foretaste 
of  the  life  of  encounter  and  opposition  which  the 
Union  gave  so  perfectly.  The  President's  chair 
on  its  raised  dais  was  like  a  throne,  and  Ray  found 
himself  wondering  how  he  himself  would  fill  it. 

There  was  a  short  burst  of  applause  and  Barroni 
entered,  followed  by  a  stately  procession  of  his 
officers,  and  took  his  seat  in  the  chair.  Then  there 
were  the  usual  formalities — the  secretary  read  his 
minutes,  the  junior  librarian  "brought  forward 
his  weekly  list  of  books,"  and  finally  the  debate 
proceeded. 

But  as  soon  as  it  had  really  begun,  Ray  felt 
once  more  disappointed.  He  had  always  looked 
to  the  Union  as  a  place  where  style,  above  every- 
thing, was  of  importance.    He  had  carried  in  his 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  123 

mind  a  legendary  picture  of  young  men  of  perfect 
carriage,  perfect  gesture,  and  perfect  perorations, 
delivering  speeches  which  possibly  did  not  mean 
very  much  but  which  were  at  any  rate  perfectly 
delivered.  It  was  not  so.  Even  the  speech  of 
Steele,  which  was  far  the  best  of  the  four,  was  a 
compromise  between  the  spirit  of  youth  and  this 
new  spirit  of  stodginess  which  had  appeared  after 
the  war.  There  were  hardly  any  irrelevancies. 
And  naturally  the  attention  of  the  audience  began 
to  wander. 

The  iron  of  war  seemed  to  have  entered  more 
deeply  into  the  Union  than  into  any  other  side 
of  Oxford  life.  Ray,  as  he  watched  the  speakers, 
noticed  how  self-conscious  they  were.  They  were 
conscious  that  they  were  men.  They  were  conscious 
that  they  had,  most  of  them,  looked  on  death. 
And  hence  a  rigid  determination,  at  all  costs,  to  be 
serious,  to  avoid  anything  which  might  savour 
even  vaguely  of  frivolity.  How  absolutely  wrong 
they  were!  They  did  not  seem  to  realise  that 
by  assuming  this  attitude  they  were,  ipso  facto, 
capitulating  to  the  enemy.  They  were  admitting 
they  were  beaten.  Ray,  like  them,  had  been 
shattered  by  the  war,  and  like  them  he  realised — 
probably  more  acutely  than  most  people  would  have 
imagined — the  vital  necessity  of  serious  thought 
and  deep  concentration  on  the  appalling  problems 
with  which  Oxford  and  the  world  were  confronted. 


i24  PATCHWORK 

But  he  also  realised  that  not  by  this  Prussianisation 
of  the  intellect  would  any  solution  at  length  emerge. 
They  had  to  look,  not  forward,  but  back.  Oxford 
in  the  past  had  won  her  way  to  greatness  "by 
impulse,  by  enthusiasm,  and  by  laughter."  She 
had  discovered  the  colossal  fact  that  between  the 
makers  of  epigrams  and  empires  there  is  no  essential 
difference,  for  both  rested  on  half-truths,  both  were 
inspired  by  a  spirit  of  enterprise,  a  spirit  of  proud 
and  often  illogical  superiority  to  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. 

And  therefore  he  longed,  as  he  listened,  to  make 
a  speech  such  as  those  he  imagined  had  been  made 
by  the  best  men  before  the  war.  He  caught 
Barroni's  eye,  and  he  nodded.  Good,  he  would  be 
able  to  speak  sixth.  He  hurriedly  took  out  a  piece 
of  paper  and  scribbled  down  a  few  notes.  This 
creature  who  was  speaking,  this  languid  impossible 
creature,  drowning  in  statistics  and  lisping  through 
marshes  of  figures — he  would  be  easy  enough  to 
attack.  He  went  on  for  so  long  that  Ray  had 
plenty  of  time  to  write  a  complete  refutation  of  all 
he  had  said. 

Eventually  he  sat  down  and  Ray  got  up.  The 
President  pointed  to  him:  "Mr.  Sheldon,  Balliol." 
There  was  some  undecided  applause  and  a  certain 
amount  of  laughter.  No  one  knew  whether  Ray 
could  speak  or  not.  They  were  very  soon  to  find 
out. 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  125 

As  soon  as  he  stood  up  by  the  despatch  boxes  it 
was  evident  to  his  hearers  that  Ray  had  about  him 
a  quality  which  the  other  speakers  most  distinctly 
lacked.  He  brought  with  him  no  notes,  which  was 
one  particularly  welcome  sign  to  an  audience  worn 
out  by  the  reading  of  many  essays.  Moreover,  he 
stood  up  straight  and  did  not  endeavour  to  hide 
under  the  table.  His  first  action  was  symbolic. 
He  had  to  defend  Prohibition.  And  therefore  he 
reached  out  his  hand  for  the  carafe  of  water  which 
stood  at  his  side,  and  leisurely  poured  some  out, 
held  it  up  to  the  light  as  if  it  were  a  precious  wine, 
sipped  it  and  set  it  down. 

There  was  a  ripple  of  delighted  applause.  It 
was  the  old  Oxford  back  once  more,  the  Oxford  of 
legend  and  of  laughter. 

Ray  carried  this  attitude  through  his  entire 
speech.  He  did  not  speak  long,  but  he  spoke 
brilliantly  enough  to  make  his  hearers  wish  for 
more.  The  first  part  of  his  speech  was  nothing 
more  than  a  shower  of  epigrams — some  good, 
some  astonishingly  feeble,  but  delivered  with  such 
rapidity  and  such  fire,  with  so  many  waves  of  the 
hand,  so  many  entrancing  gestures  that  the  general 
impression  was  that  of  a  firework  display.  He 
referred  with  pointed  scorn  to  "the  honourable 
member  who  has  just  sat  down,  and  who  I  trust 
may  soon  sit  up."  He  informed  honourable  mem- 
bers opposite  that  they  were  walking  on  a  political 


126  PATCHWORK 

tightrope,  and  that  it  was  not  only  the  rope  that 
was  "tight."  Then  after  five  minutes  of  this  he 
suddenly  became  serious,  and  spoke  with  a  convic- 
tion and  a  logic  which  is  only  possible  to  one  who 
does  not  believe  in  his  subject.  "The  honourable 
member  might  have  done  two  things.  He  might 
have  sung  the  poetry  of  wine,  he  might  have  come 
to  the  floor  of  the  House  crowned  with  vine  leaves 
and  hurled  the  grapes  of  his  good  living  into  the 
faces  of  his  opponents,  or  he  might  have  charmed  us 
with  his  chastity,  and  frozen  us  with  the  bitterness 
of  his  illogical  asceticism.  But  he  had  done  neither 
of  these  things.  He  was  neither  drunk  nor  was  he 
sober.  He  was  neither  corrupt  nor  was  he  convinc- 
ing. He  was  neither  charming  nor  was  he  chaste. 
He  .  .  .  etc.  .  .  .  etc.  .  .  ." 

Peroration.  And  the  applause  certainly  left  no 
doubt  as  to  his  success. 

Ray  did  not  wait  for  the  remainder  of  the  debate. 
He  made  his  way  quickly  through,  voting,  in  his 
haste,  on  the  wrong  side,  and  went  out  into  the  cool 
of  the  star-lit  garden. 

So  that  was  how  things  were!  He  was  a 
speaker.  Whatever  anybody  might  say  about  his 
other  accomplishments,  they  would  certainly  never 
be  able  to  deny  that  he  could  speak.  And  in  some 
ways  it  was  the  most  wonderful  gift  of  all.  It  was 
even  more  exciting  than  playing  the  piano  because 
it  was  so  infinitely  more  personal.     While  one  was 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  127 

speaking,  one  seemed  to  be  living  the  lives  of  all 
the  people  in  the  room,  it  was  like  having  hundreds 
of  hands  touching  their  hearts.  He  looked  round 
and  saw  Barroni,  who  had  hastened  out  soon  after 
Ray  for  a  breath  of  fresh  air. 

He  came  up.  "My  dear  Ray,  a  thousand  con- 
gratulations!" he  intoned.  "I  should  have  sent 
you  a  note  but  you  ran  away  so  soon." 

Ray  flushed  and  smiled.  "Thanks  awfully, 
Barroni.  But  there's  really  nothing  to  congratulate 
me  about." 

"On  the  contrary,  there's  a  great  deal.  You 
made  a  most  remarkable  impression.  Ve-ry  re- 
markable indeed.  In  fact,  so  remarkable  that  I  feel 
distinctly  jealous." 

"Oh,  rot." 

"Not  in  the  least.  But  seriously,  old  fellow, 
why  don't  you  go  in  for  it?" 

"The  Union?" 

"Yes.  You  can  talk  much  better  than  any  of 
these  mediocrities."  He  indicated  a  little  group  of 
undergraduates  who  were  trooping  out  of  the  debat- 
ing hall. 

"Yes,  but  the  point  is  what  can  I  talk  about?" 

"Oh,  that  doesn't  matter.  If  you're  a  speaker 
you  can  talk  with  equal  effect  about  anything  from 
modern  tragedy  to — well,  tariff  reform." 

"I  always  imagined  they  were  identical,"  laughed 
Ray. 


i28  PATCHWORK 

"They  are.  But  you're  avoiding  the  point. 
Will  you  speak  'on  the  paper'  next  week?" 

Ray  shook  his  head.  "Thanks  awfully,  but  I 
don't  think  I'll  do  anything  till  next  term.  Next 
week  is  Eights  Week  and  I  shall  be  fearfully 
busy." 

Barroni  looked  disappointed.  "Very  well.  Only 
I  wish  you  could  have  enlivened  a  few  of  the 
remaing  debates  this  term.  You've  no  idea  how 
intensely  boring  it  is  to  have  to  sit  in  that  chair  till 
half-past  eleven  every  Thursday  night,  listening  to 
pompous  platitudes  badly  phrased  and  badly  de- 
livered." 

Ray  nodded.     "I  suppose  it  is." 

"Nobody  ever  attempts  to  see  the  humorous 
side  of  anything.  They  seem  to  think  that  it's 
pro-German  to  make  an  epigram." 

"Well,  what  on  earth  did  they  think  of  me?" 

"Oh,  you  needn't  worry  about  that.  They 
showed  what  they  thought  of  you  when  you  sat 
down."  He  glanced  over  his  shoulder.  "Look 
here,  I  must  run  back  or  I  shall  be  accused  of  de- 
serting my  post.  Sure  you  won't  speak  next 
week?" 

"I'm  afraid  so." 

"Very  well.  But  if  you  do  change  your  mind 
let  me  know." 

"All  right." 

Ray  passed  through  the  iron  gates,  and  made 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  129 

his  way  down  St.  Michael  Street  with  the  echoes  of 
laughter  still  ringing  pleasantly  in  his  ears. 

The  next  five  days  were  spent  in  preparation  for 
Eights  Week.  Eights  Week  was  really  concentrated 
Oxford,  and  Ray,  in  his  desire  to  taste  to  the  full  the 
life  of  Oxford  at  its  best,  allowed  his  other  activities, 
for  the  time,  to  be  forgotten. 

Lady  Sheldon  arrived  on  Tuesday,  bringing 
Helen  Tavers  with  her  as  she  had  arranged.  Ray 
went  with  Steele  to  meet  them  at  the  station. 

"How  wonderful  you  both  look!"  He  glanced 
at  Helen,  a  slim  dark  girl,  with  a  face  more  like  a 
boy  than  a  young  woman,  and  a  dress  of  white  whip- 
cord, with  a  little  collar  of  silver  cloth.  His  mother 
was  in  grey. 

"Redfern,  isn't  it?"  he  laughed  as  he  gave  her 
a  hug. 

She  smiled.  "Yes,  Ray,  it  is,  and  if  you  don't 
stop  it  will  look  like  Derry  &  Tom's." 

"Sorry.  This  is  Steele,  whom  I  talked  to  you 
about." 

Introductions  were  difficult  in  this  bustle  of 
porters  and  suit-cases,  so  they  went  outside  and 
got  two  hansoms.  Ray  climbed  into  the  first  with 
his  mother,  and  Steele  and  Helen  brought  up  the 
rear. 

"How  thoughtful  of  you  to  get  such  wonderful 
things  to   ride  in!"  said  Lady  Sheldon,  as  they 


i3o  PATCHWORK 

swept  along.  "I  haven't  ridden  in  a  hansom  for — 
oh,  centuries.  London  used  to  be  so  charming 
when  the  hansoms  were  still  there.  So  festive,  and 
not  so  terribly  petrolfied.  But  Oxford's  far  nicer 
than  London.  What  is  that?"  She  pointed  to 
Worcester. 

Ray  told  her. 

"Is  it  a  college?" 

"Oh,  rather.    It's  quite  lovely  inside." 

"Oh,  I  remember  now.  There's  Balliol.  How 
hideous  it  is,  isn't  it?     And  here's  Turl  Street." 

"We  call  it  the  Turl." 

"Of  course.  Wasn't  there  a  play  once  called 
'The  Earl  and  the  Turl'?  Or  was  it  the  Girl? 
How  silly  I  am!  Ray,  don't  let  me  be  so  silly. 
And  anyway,  isn't  this  the  Mitre?" 

They  got  down,  and  Ray  handed  over  Helen 
and  his  mother  to  the  head  waiter,  a  great  friend 
of  his. 

After  lunch  they  went  down  to  the  river.  How 
delightful  Eights  Week  was!  If  it  was  like  this 
now,  what  must  it  have  been  before  the  war?  The 
river  was  pandemonium.  So  many  frocks  of  blue 
and  white,  so  many  butterfly  parasols — even  tea  on 
the  barge  was  charming,  although  the  heat  was  such 
that  the  paint  blistered  in  the  sun,  and  the  pink 
cakes  had  long  ago  melted.  However,  Ray  felt 
cool  enough,  especially  when  after  tea  they  went  on 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  131 

the  river  and  drifted  away  from  the  chattering 
multitudes,  slowly  down  stretches  of  green  water, 
deep  into  the  land  of  the  white  hawthorn. 

Three  days  sped  by  in  this  way.  Ray  lost  all 
count  of  time,  and  gave  himself  up  whole-heartedly 
to  the  revel.  There  were  lunches  at  the  Mitre, 
wonderful  lunches  at  which  nobody  knew  who  was 
coming,  though  whoever  did  come  was  welcome,  and 
ate  his  salmon  mayonnaise  and  fruit  salad,  and 
sparkled  over  his  cool  white  wine.  There  were 
wonderful  dinners  in  College,  dinners  of  a  mock 
stateliness  such  as  Barroni  gave  on  the  following 
day  in  his  rooms,  lit  with  candles  and  fragrant 
with  the  scent  of  wallflowers  and  wisteria  which 
drifted  in  through  the  cavernous  open  windows. 
The  his  double  number  appeared  and  was  pro- 
nounced brilliant,  and  Ray's  article  on  the  Union, 
entitled  "L'Union  fait  la  farce,"  although  it  an- 
noyed Barroni,  was  the  cause  for  a  good  deal  of 
congratulatory  chaffing. 

And  then  came  the  special  number  of  The 
Oxford  Mercury,  with  Ray's  sonnet  sequence,  Bar- 
roni's  Disraelian  satires,  Tommy  Quill's  delicious 
parodies  of  Masefield,  Steele's  exposition  of  Liberal 
principles,  and  a  good  deal  else  besides.  Black- 
well's  window  was  a  blaze  of  orange,  which  rapidly 
disappeared  before  the  locust  hordes  of  visitors  who 
desired  to  see  what  young  Oxford  was  thinking,  and 


i32  PATCHWORK 

a  second  impression  was  not  only  called  for  but 
sold,  a  remarkable  event  in  the  annals  of  under- 
graduate journalism. 

Even  breakfasts  were  public  festivals,  and  every 
morning,  at  half-past  nine,  Ray  would  walk  down 
the  Turl  in  white  flannels  and  wait  in  the  Mitre 
with  a  group  of  laughing  friends  till  his  mother 
came  down  the  dark  old  stairs,  with  many  pretty 
apologies  for  being  so  late.  Oxford  before  break- 
fast was  a  city  of  sheer  delight,  limpid  and  washed 
with  pale  morning  gold,  white  streets,  grey  spires, 
green  chestnuts.  .  .  . 

And  then,  of  course,  there  were  the  dances. 
Never  did  Ray  feel  so  vital  as  at  a  dance,  never  did 
Oxford  look  so  wonderful.  Even  Balliol,  when  she 
danced,  acquired  a  sort  of  elfin  mystery,  and  hung 
her  trees  with  glowing  orange  and  pink  magic 
lanterns,  while  the  House  ball  altogether  defied 
description. 

It  was  the  last  ball  of  the  season,  and  Ray 
decided  that  they  would  dine  at  the  Mitre  alone — 
his  mother,  Helen,  and  himself.  He  felt  brimming 
over  with  energy. 

"Let's  be  perfectly  marvellous  to-night,  shall 
we?"  he  said  to  Helen. 

"We  are  being." 

"You  are.  Am  I?  I  wonder.  I  feel  inclined 
to  rush  round  and  embrace   everybody.    Things 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  133 

have  only  just  started,  really.  Isn't  it  lovely  to  be 
surrounded  by  so  many  people  you  don't  know,  but 
who  all  know  you?  I'm  sure  that's  the  only 
reason  that  anybody  becomes  Prime  Minister 
or  anything  at  all — just  because  they  want  to 
walk  down  the  street  and  be  known  by  simply  every- 
body. It  must  be  astonishing  to  drive  down  huge 
broad  streets,  and  take  off  one's  hat  with  a  charm- 
ing sort  of  smirk.  Oh,  my  dearest  mother,  I  must 
be  Prime  Minister." 

"Of  course  you  must,  Ray." 

He  turned  to  Helen.  "Isn't  it  an  awful 
prospect  to  think  you're  going  to  be  governed  by 
somebody  whose  only  ambition  is  to  take  off  his 
hat  to  people?" 

She  shook  her  head  lazily.  "Not  in  the  least. 
It's  a  very  laudable  ambition.  Besides,  you'll  look 
so  charming  in  Downing  Street.  It's  where  you 
obviously  ought  to  be." 

"No  one  with  a  temperament  is  ever  where 
they  ought  to  be." 

"Is  that  an  epigram?" 

"No,  it's  a  faded  relic  of  the  nineties.  Any- 
way, never  mind  what  it  is.  I've  been  making 
epigrams  all  day." 

"How  dreadfully  clever  you  all  are!"  sighed 
Lady  Sheldon. 


i34  PATCHWORK 

"I  know.  Isn't  it  hateful  of  us?  And  mother 
dear,  you're  looking  rather  tired." 

She  smiled  rather  pathetically.  "I  think  I  am 
a  tiny  bit  tired,"  she  admitted. 

Ray  put  his  hand  on  hers.  "You're  a  perfect 
angel,  but  you  are  fearfully  wicked." 

"Why?" 

"Because  you  never  will  look  after  yourself. 
Now,  if  I  had  anything  the  matter  with  me — the 
most  absurd  little  thing — you'd  insist  that  I  saw 
heaps  of  doctors  and  drank  dozens  of  things,  and 
ate  quantities  of  food  and  drowned  myself  in  milk, 
and  generally  recuperated.  But  you  never  do 
anything  like  that  yourself." 

"I  know.     But  then  I'm  older,  you  see." 

"Rot!" 

"My  dear  Ray,  I  must  be  a  little  older  or  I 
couldn't  be  your  mother." 

Ray  bowed  to  this  invincible  logic. 

"Hens  must  come  before  eggs,  mustn't  they? 
Now  I  really  think  that  was  a  clever  thing  to  say, 
wasn't  it?"     She  appealed  to  Helen. 

"It  would  have  been,"  interrupted  Ray,  "if 
you  bore  the  smallest  resemblance  to  a  hen,  or  if  I 
were  in  any  way — what's  the  adjective  meaning 
eggy? — ovine?  Or  is  that  the  name  of  one  of 
the  patent  foods  I  have  to  take  when  I  have  a 
cold?  I  don't  know,  you  are  rather  brilliant 
though,  mother,  because  as  usual  you've  switched 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  135 

the  conversation  off  yourself,  and  as  usual  I've 
turned  it  on  to  me.  Helen,  how  do  you  stop  being 
egotistical?" 

"I  don't." 

"I  know.  No,  please  don't  throw  olives  at  me. 
But  how  would  you  if  you  could?" 

"I  wouldn't.     Besides  I  couldn't." 

"How  trying  you  are!" 

"Am  I  really?"    She  laughed. 

"Dreadfully.  'She  only  does  it  to  annoy 
because  she  knows  it  teases.'  I  am  quoting,  so 
you  must  excuse  the  crudity  of  the  language." 

"Well,  let's  talk  about  something  else." 

"What?" 

"Women,"  suggested  Helen. 

"Oh  no.  You  should  never  start  with  women. 
You  should  always  experiment  on  something  else 
first" 

"Well,  education?"  added  Lady  Sheldon  faintly. 

"Mother  dear,  how  terribly  morbid  of  you! 
How  can  I  talk  about  education  in  Oxford?" 

"Can  you  talk  about  anything  at  all  in 
Oxford?" 

"About  anything,  yes.  Never  about  some- 
thing, though.  Of  course  we're  rather  slipshod 
at  times.  .  .  ." 

"Why?" 

"Well,  Oxford's  the  home  of  lost  clauses." 

Helen  clapped  her  hands.     "Good  little  Ray!" 


136  PATCHWORK 

They  went  on  to  the  dance  alone,  because  Lady 
Sheldon  was  so  tired  that  Ray  insisted  that  she 
should  go  to  bed.  He  had  bought  her  a  great 
bunch  of  yellow  roses,  and  laid  them  on  her 
dressing-table. 

"Ray,  you  have  been  so  kind  to  me,"  she  said, 
as  she  kissed  him  good  night. 

"Mother,  you  absurd  creature,  as  if  I  could  be 
anything  else  if  I  tried.     Good  night." 

"Good  night,  Ray." 

The  next  two  hours  were  spent  at  the  House, 
dancing  incessantly  with  Helen  or  with  any  one  else 
to  whom  he  was  introduced.  So  intoxicating  was 
the  influence  of  the  music,  the  vast  lighted  hall,  the 
innumerable  fairy  lights  which  lay  like  monstrous 
luminous  necklaces  against  the  dark  roofs  in  the 
quad,  that  it  was  not  till  nearly 'one,  when  the  dance 
was  only  half-way  through,  that  he  realised  that  he 
felt  tired.  He  sought  Helen,  who  was  sitting 
alone  in  a  corner  of  the  cloisters.  They  had  supper 
together  and  then  went  back  to  the  ballroom. 

"Shall  we  dance  the  next  one?" 

Helen  shook  her  head.  "No,  let's  watch  for 
a  bit." 

"All  right." 

The  band  had  only  just  started,  and  the  floor 
was  a  blank,  shining  waste,  fringed  with  fluttering 
frocks  and  white  arms.  Suddenly  a  couple  detached 
themselves  from  the  side  and  took  the  floor.    As 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  137 

usual  in  a  very  large  ballroom,  all  eyes  were  upon 
them.  Ray  expected  to  see  the  usual  apologetic 
and  self-conscious  walk,  and  the  expression  of 
anguished  entreaty  for  others  to  join  in.  But  no 
sooner  had  they  started  to  move  than  he  caught 
his  breath  with  admiration.  A  few  slow,  graceful 
steps,  and  then  a  lightning  "twirl"  right  down 
the  centre  of  the  room.  He  had  once  seen  Harry 
Pilcer  do  the  same  step  with  his  partner  in  Paris, 
but  never  had  he  seen  anything  approaching  this. 
Like  two  rose-leaves  caught  in  a  river  eddy  they 
drifted  and  twined,  light  as  air.  And  then,  with 
a  break  in  the  music,  they  suddenly  stopped,  dead 
still.  The  pose  was  daring,  exaggerated,  theatrical, 
but  it  was  so  superb  that  a  ripple  of  applause 
echoed  round  the  room. 

He  turned  to  Helen,  who  was  watching  equally 
eagerly. 

"My  God!"  he  said.  "Did  you  see  that? 
I'd  no  idea  that  modern  dancing  could  be  so 
astonishingly  beautiful." 

"Who  are  they?" 

"I  don't  know.  But  I  shall  very  soon  find 
out."  He  looked  at  them  again,  but  already  the 
floor  was  filling  with  couples  performing  the  usual 
aimless  circles.  "How  these  creatures  have  the 
impudence  to  get  up  and  waddle  about  after  that, 
beats  me  entirely."  His  eyes  rested  indignantly 
on  a  stout  matron  in  front  of  him  who  had  just 


i38  PATCHWORK 

risen.  From  the  extraordinary  curves  and  angles 
into  which  she  immediately  bent  herself,  it  was 
probable  that  she  had  distinctly  heard  what  he  said. 

However,  he  was  too  excited  to  care  for  any- 
body. He  watched  the  couple  as  they  danced  their 
way  round  the  room.  How  exquisite  they  were! 
Ray  had  never  realised  that  ballroom  dancing 
could  approach  such  perfection.  Even  in  this 
glittering  crowd  they  stood  out  clearly.  He 
wondered  who  the  girl  was,  with  her  wine-yellow 
satin,  and  the  clustering  clematis  in  her  hair; 
against  these  stern  old  walls  she  seemed  to  shine 
like  a  firefly.  And  the  boy — it  was  incredible 
that  he  could  be  an  undergraduate.  He  was  so 
consummate  an  actor,  although  he  could  not  have 
been  more  than  twenty  years  old.  He  held  himself 
perfectly — the  pose  of  his  head  was  rather  cheeky, 
and  his  eyes  lighted  with  a  sort  of  contemptuous 
amusement  as  he  steered  through  the  mediocrities 
by  whom  he  was  surrounded.  Of  course,  he  was 
infinitely  the  better  dancer  of  the  two.  Without 
him  the  girl  would  have  been  merely  a  pretty 
nobody. 

Suddenly  the  music  stopped.  He  looked  at 
Helen. 

"You're  engaged  for  the  next,  aren't  you?" 

She  nodded. 

"Well,  I  shall  run  away,  then.  I  simply  must 
find  out  who  that  boy  is." 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  139 

He  jumped  up  and  made  his  way  through  the 
crowd.  At  first  he  thought  that  he  had  lost  him, 
but  he  caught  sight  of  the  girl's  yellow  dress  on 
the  lighted  stairs.  She  was  just  saying  good-bye 
to  her  partner,  and  wandered  back  to  the  ballroom, 
while  he  went  downstairs  and  out  into  the  cloisters. 

Ray  ran  after  him. 

"I  say,"  he  began;  "I  hope  you'll  forgive 
me,  but  I  simply  had  to  come  and  tell  you  how 
perfectly  marvellous  I  thought  your  dancing  was." 

The  other  laughed  and  blushed.  "Oh  no,  it 
wasn't,"  he  said. 

"Excuse  me,  but  it  most  certainly  was.  Look 
here,  are  you  dancing  the  next?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Well,  couldn't  we  sit  it  out  together?  I 
shan't  feel  happy  till  I've  repeated  myself  at  least 
a  dozen  times." 

He  paused  undecidedly.  Then  he  saw  that  Ray 
was  in  earnest. 

"All  right,  let's  sit  here."  They  went  over  to 
an  empty  corner,  and  sat  down  in  striped  deck 
chairs. 

Ray  produced  his  cigarette  case.  "Will  you 
smoke?  Yes — those  are  Turkish.  And,  by  the 
way,  I  ought  to  introduce  myself — my  name's 
Sheldon.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  I  knew  that,"  laughed  the  other.  "Mine's 
Yorke — David  Yorke." 


i4o  PATCHWORK 

"But  you're  not  up  at  the  'Varsity,  are  you?" 

"Oh  yes.     Why  not?" 

"Well,"  Ray  smiled,  "I  don't  really  know. 
But  it  struck  me  that  no  undergraduate  could 
possibly  dance  like  that." 

He  hoped  Yorke  wasn't  offended.  While  he 
was  dancing  he  had  seemed  to  be  so  superbly  self- 
confident,  so  utterly  contemptuous  of  everybody 
around  him.  Now  he  was  sitting  here  he  gave  the 
appearance  of  being  rather  shy.  His  cheeks  were 
flushed,  and  his  eyes  looked  restlessly  round  as 
though  he  were  ashamed  of  his  recent  triumph. 

"I  hope  you  don't  think  me  extraordinarily 
impertinent?" 

Yorke  lifted  his  eyes  frankly  to  meet  Ray's. 
"No,"  he  said,  "I  just  think  you  are  extraor- 
dinarily kind.  At  first  I  thought  you  might  be 
ragging,  but  I  see  now  that  you  aren't." 

"Ragging?  Good  Lord,  as  if  I  should  rag  about 
a  performance  like  yours!"  Ray  lifted  his  hands 
in  an  eloquent  gesture. 

"Well,  the  people  at  Trinity  do." 

"Are  you  at  Trinity?" 

"Yes." 

"Oh,  well,  let  them.  I  shouldn't  care  a  damn 
what  they  say." 

"I  don't  really." 

"That's  just  what  struck  me  most.  When  you 
started  off — absolutely  alone — with  that  amazing 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  141 

sort  of  blase,  let-the-rest-of-the-world-go-to-the- 
devil  look — I — well,  I  thought  I  should  burst.  My 
dear  boy,  you're  an  absolute  genius." 

They  both  laughed. 

"It  was  rather  amusing,  certainly,"  said  Yorke. 
"Of  course,  all  these  people  here  probably  think  it's 
vulgar,  or  something  like  that,  but  still  .  .  ."  He 
paused. 

"Let  them  think  what  they  like.  Personally  I've 
got  the  utmost  contempt  for  almost  everybody  in 
the  'Varsity." 

"You?"    Yorke  looked  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"Yes,  haven't  you  yourself?" 

"Well,  perhaps,  in  a  way,  I  have."  He  looked  at 
Ray  doubtfully,  as  though  he  were  still  uncertain 
as  to  whether  he  were  pulling  his  leg.  "But  with 
you  I  should  have  thought  it  would  have  been  dif- 
ferent— you  see,  you're  such  a  blood." 

"Blood?     This  is  only  my  second  term." 

"Oh,  I  know,  but  you've  done  almost  everything 
there  is  to  do — everybody  knows  who  you  are.  It's 
quite  different  for  you — you  can  say  what  you  like. 
Besides,"  he  stretched  out  his  feet  and  kicked  away 
a  loose  pebble,  "you've  got  so  many  other  interests." 

"I'm  not  half  so  interested  in  all  these  absurd 
things  as  some  people  think  I  am,"  returned  Ray. 
"I  only  do  them  because  it  gives  me  something  to 
think  about.  Besides,  people  get  jealous,  and  it's 
amusing  for  people  to  get  jealous." 


1 42  PATCHWORK 

They  talked  on,  strangely  intimate  talk  consider- 
ing they  had  only  met  five  minutes  ago.  However, 
when  the  music  started  after  the  next  dance,  Yorke 
got  up. 

"I  must  run,"  he  said.  "It  was  most  awfully 
kind  of  you  to  come  along  like  that." 

"I'm  jolly  glad  I  summoned  up  the  courage,"  said 
Ray. 

Yorke  hesitated  a  moment.  "By  the  way,  are 
you  doing  anything  after  the  dance?" 

Ray  shook  his  head.     "Not  unless  I  go  to  bed." 

"Well,  I  thought  of  going  on  the  river.  I 
suppose  you  wouldn't  care  to  come?" 

"I  should  simply  love  to." 

"That's  ripping.  Then  shall  I  meet  you  in  the 
quad  after  they've  taken  the  photo?" 

"All  right.     Thanks  awfully." 

"So  long,  then."  He  turned  and  walked  quickly 
into  the  lighted  entry. 

Ray  felt  no  inclination,  at  that  moment,  to  fol- 
low him.  He  was  afraid  that  if  he  saw  him  dance 
again  he  might  be  disappointed.  But  apart  from 
his  dancing,  what  a  charming  fellow  he  seemed  to 
be!  He  was  totally  unlike  any  other  undergradu- 
ate he  had  ever  met.  He  was  so  extraordinarily 
natural  and  unspoilt,  and  yet  he  contained  in  him 
just  that  capacity  for  opening  people's  eyes,  for 
taking  the  limelight,  for  advertisement,  which  he 
himself  found  so  diverting. 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  143 

Advertisement!  He  wandered  out  into  the  open 
quadrangle.  Somehow,  in  this  fairyland  of  green 
and  silver,  the  idea  of  advertisement  seemed  intoler- 
ably out  of  place.  And  yet  at  present  it  was,  after 
all,  the  guiding  principle  of  his  life.  Great  crowds, 
the  glitter  of  lights,  music,  flowers — they  all  seemed 
to  urge  him  on  to  do  great  things.  What  he  had 
laughingly  said  to  Helen  at  dinner — about  becom- 
ing Prime  Minister  in  order  that  he  might  take  off 
his  hat  to  people — had  in  it  an  element  of  truth. 
It  was  the  histrionic  in  life,  in  politics,  in  art,  that 
appealed  to  him.  That  explained  his  incapacity  for 
the  ordinary  ways  of  scholarship.  But  on  the  other 
hand  he  would  spend  hours  preparing  a  speech,  be- 
cause he  knew  that  he  would  know  the  joy  of  living 
when  he  delivered  it,  he  would  taste  in  advance  the 
sweetness  of  applause.  He  would  spend  days  in 
practising  some  etude  to  play  at  a  concert,  for  the 
same  reason.  No,  that  was  exaggerating.  He 
would  have  played  just  as  well  if  he  had  never  had 
any  audience  but  himself.  And  after  all,  he  did 
believe  in  all  the  things  of  which  he  talked  and 
wrote  so  brilliantly.  Or,  didn't  he?  Anyway  it 
was  far  too  beautiful  a  night  to  bother  about  that 
sort  of  thing. 

He  wondered  how  Yorke  was  dancing  now. 
Should  he  go  in  and  watch  again?  No,  he  decided 
that  he  wouldn't.  He  would  probably  be  disap- 
pointed.    Besides,  it  was  so  beautiful   out  here. 


i44  PATCHWORK 

Helen  was  booked  up  for  the  rest  of  the  night,  so 
there  was  no  necessity  to  dance  any  more.  He  lay 
back  in  his  chair  and  fell  into  a  doze. 

He  was  conscious  all  the  time  of  music  and  laugh- 
ter in  the  distance,  of  the  soft  rustle  of  dresses,  and 
low  voices  echoing  in  the  cloisters.  He  was  con- 
scious too  that  the  night  was  fast  giving  way  to 
day.  The  luminous  necklaces  of  fairy  lights  flut- 
tered out  one  by  one  till  they  were  all  quenched  by 
the  first  signs  of  dawn.  It  shone  over  the  dim  roofs 
as  a  silver  feather  in  the  East.  It  was  joined  by 
other  feathers,  and  finally  it  seemed  to  his  dream- 
ing mind  that  a  monstrous  and  brightly  coloured 
bird  was  rising  majestically  in  the  sky,  and  spread- 
ing its  gorgeous  wings  over  the  whole  earth.  He 
rubbed  his  eyes  and  saw  that  it  was  indeed  day. 

After  the  photograph  had  been  taken,  he  took 
Helen  home,  and  getting  into  flannels  sped  down 
the  white  road  on  a  bicycle  to  Milham  Ford.  He 
felt  once  more  wide  awake  and  drank  in  the  keen 
air.  David  was  waiting  for  him  by  the  river. 
They  sheered  off  gently  from  the  landing  stage,  and 
swung  out  into  mid-stream,  under  Magdalen  bridge 
and  the  green  gloom  of  overhanging  chestnuts. 
Past  larches,  tremulous  and  ecstatic  in  the  light 
breeze,  past  hedges,  gay  with  pink  flowering  thorn, 
past  fields  of  long  lush  grass  dotted  with  wind- 
flowers  and  wild  dog-daisies,  under  the  sudden  rush 


BLUE  AND  SILVER  145 

of  the  weir,  crisp  and  sparkling  in  the  sun,  down 
cool  curving  avenues  of  dark  trees. 

"Not  tired?" 

David  shook  his  head. 

Ray  lay  back  and  looked  up  at  the  blue  and 
golden  spaces  of  the  sky.  It  had  been  raining  dur- 
ing the  night,  and  the  hanging  hedgerows  were  still 
wet,  and  shed  their  dew  like  diamonds  as  the  pole 
touched  them.  Never  had  there  been  so  fragrant 
a  morning.  Before  this  translucent  loveliness  the 
night's  revel  seemed  to  fade  into  a  memory  of  tin- 
sel and  powder. 

Here  indeed,  he  felt,  was  the  Oxford  he  had  been 
seeking.  Here,  in  this  paradise  of  shadowed  green, 
was  Oxford's  *  secret.  Through  trees  one  could 
catch  a  glimpse  of  blossoming  spires,  white  as  ivory 
against  a  background  of  blue.  He  suddenly  real- 
ised, with  a  twitch  of  pain,  how  transient  it  all  was. 
While  he  was  here,  living  this  marvellous  life, 
laughing  this  wonderful  laughter,  and  dreaming 
these  magnificent  dreams,  he  was  still  young.  He 
could  still  look  up  to  the  sky  and  thank  God  for  the 
spring.     But  after? 

He  felt  he  must  drain  even  more  passionately 
than  he  had  done  already  the  cup  while  it  was  still 
at  his  lips.  He  could  have  leaped  into  the  mead- 
ows and  rolled  in  the  grass,  and  gathered  all  the 
flowers  and  crushed  them  in  one  mass  of  intoxicat- 
ing sweetness  to  his  face.    He  felt  inclined  to  laugh 


i46  PATCHWORK 

and  cry  and  sing  and  meditate  all  at  once.  Life 
was  so  damned  short. 

"I  say,  you'll  upset  us  if  you  don't  look  out." 

"Awfully  sorry."  Ray  laughed  happily.  "But 
why  not  let's  get  in?" 

"What,  here?" 

"Yes." 

David  paused,  and  then  smiled.  "It  would  be 
rather  priceless,"  he  said.     "Fearfully  cold,  though." 

"Oh,  no,  it  won't." 

Already  he  had  pulled  off  his  sweater.  He 
kicked  away  his  white  shoes,  stripped  off  his  flan- 
nels and  stood  for  a  moment,  his  white  limbs  gilded 
by  the  sun,  his  face  flushed  and  exultant — and  then, 
a  rush  of  green  water  and  a  choking  sensation  of 
icy  freshness. 

David  followed  him  in  an  instant,  and  for  a  few 
minutes  they  shouted  and  splashed.  Then  with 
much  panting  and  more  bad  language  they  clam- 
bered out,  dried  themselves. hastily  and  took  it  in 
turns  to  punt  back  to  get  warm. 

The  effect  of  the  water  had  been  to  make  both 
of  them  overwhelmingly  sleepy.  They  walked  back 
slowly  through  quiet  streets,  and  Ray  bade  good- 
bye to  David  outside  the  great  gates  of  Trinity. 

Yes,  it  had  been  a  wonderful  term. 


PART  II 


CHAPTER  I 

MIDSUMMER  MADNESS 

LADY  SHELDON  had  departed  to  the  country 
by  the  time  that  Ray  reached  London,  and  so 
for  the  next  month  he  had  Curzon  Street  to  himself. 
He  was,  indeed,  rather  glad  to  have  this  time  alone, 
in  order  that  he  might  attempt  after  so  much  carni- 
val to  settle  down,  "to  shake  the  rose  leaves  from 
his  hair.  .  .  ."  Moreover,  it  was  high  time  that  he 
attempted  to  do  some  work.  And  so  he  went  out 
but  little,  and  employed  his  time  principally  in  read- 
ing political  science.  There  was  an  almost  physi- 
cal satisfaction  in  allowing  his  heated  imagina- 
tion to  cool  itself  in  the  grandiloquent  phrases  of 
the  "Great  Leviathan."  It  was  like  wandering 
down  some  long,  dusky  corridor  after  coming  out 
of  a  brilliantly  lighted  ballroom.  In  these  pages 
there  was  nothing  to  stimulate  the  imagination 
there  were  no  colours  to  inflame  still  more  his  senses, 
only  a  calm  and  peaceful  exercise  of  the  intellect. 
Indeed,  he  grew  so  fond  of  Hobbes  that  he  ordered 
from  Hatchard's  a  seventeenth-century  edition, 
bound  in  old  brown  leather,  and  with  the  original 
frontispiece  of  the  Great  Leviathan,  a  giant  made 

149 


i5o  PATCHWORK 

up  of  the  myriad  bodies  of  tiny  human  beings. 
The  rich  but  simple  beauty  of  Hobbes'  language 
seemed  enhanced  as  he  explored  the  theory  of  sov- 
ereignty through  these  stained  and  yellow  pages 
of  rusty  print,  and  he  spent  many  prolixious  days 
in  obtaining  an  aesthetic  enjoyment  of  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  seventeenth  century. 

However,  he  managed  in  this  month  to  get 
through  quite  a  fair  amount  of  work.  The  unrest 
which  had  troubled  so  terribly  his  brain  in  the  days 
of  his  first  term  at  Oxford  seemed  now,  if  not  gone, 
at  any  rate  perceptibly  mitigated.  In  those  days 
it  had  seemed  impossible  to  work  at  all — nothing 
would  bring  satisfaction  but  movement  and  laugh- 
ter and  light.  But  now,  for  the  moment,  he  felt 
that  he  had  had  enough  of  those.  .  .  .  He  was 
tired.  Even  to  try  to  discover  by  reflection  if  he 
had  in  any  way  succeeded  in  his  self-imposed  task 
of  restoring  the  old  Oxford  seemed  to  be  a  bore, 
and  it  was  far  more  satisfactory  to  go  upstairs  to 
his  cool  sitting-room  and  spend  the  long  summer 
evenings  bent  over  the  pages  of  some  volume  of 
political  history. 

He  had  never  realised  before  how  fascinating 
history  could  be.  It  seemed  to  be  merely  another 
means  of  multiplying  one's  own  personality.  He 
saw  himself  clothed  in  the  slashed  sleeves  and  the 
gay  linings  of  a  Piers  Gaveston,  parading  old  ter- 
races and  carrying  on  illicit  amours  under  the  red 


MIDSUMMER  MADNESS  151 

noses  of  an  outraged  and  wooden-faced  nobility. 
He  saw  himself  again,  the  favourite  of  James  I, 
playing  with  the  susceptibilities  of  an  entire  people 
merely  because  his  face  was  charming  and  his 
character  vivid.  Or,  if  he  were  feeling  less  pro- 
vocative, he  would  taste  with  Charles  James  Fox 
the  delight  of  throwing  the  waves  of  his  oratory 
against  the  immutable  lines  of  hard-faced  men  that 
filled  the  eighteenth-century  House  of  Commons,  or 
would  live  against  those  immortal  moments  when 
Disraeli  seared  the  soul  of  Peel  with  the  vitriol  of 
his  epigrammatic  artificiality.  Disraeli  was,  indeed, 
in  many  ways  Ray's  ideal  politician.  He  regretted 
the  fact,  because  it  was  an  admiration  which  he 
had  to  share  with  so  many  unintelligent  people,  but 
nevertheless  the  career  of  Disraeli  had  about  it  a 
flavour  of  the  rococo  which  was  lamentably  lacking 
in  the  lives  of  men  like  Melbourne  and  Palmerston, 
whose  sole  efflorescence  seemed  to  be  confined  to 
whiskers.  Many  was  the  night  that  Ray  would 
pace  the  room,  holding  in  one  hand  the  speeches  of 
Disraeli  and  waving  the  other  with  imaginous  ges- 
tures, while  he  drawled  the  polished  periods  which 
had  once  fallen  from  Disraeli's  lips.  He  even  ran- 
sacked his  chest  of  drawers  for  black  cravats,  and 
whitened  his  face  and  combed  the  wavy  hair  over 
his  forehead,  in  order  that  he  might  stand  in  front 
of  the  long  glass,  and  believe  that  he  was  indeed 
the  character  which  he  was  impersonating. 


1 52  PATCHWORK 

And  so  a  month  passed  by  in  which  he  was  en- 
tirely engaged  in  assimilating  history,  and  he  almost 
forgot  that  up  till  now  his  chief  preoccupation  had 
been  the  youthful  hope  that  he  was  making  it. 
But  he  still  kept  in  touch  with  his  Oxford  followers. 
Steele  wrote  constantly  from  Germany,  where  he 
appeared  to  be  discovering  and  repudiating  all  the 
most  intriguing  vices.  Mr.  Waterberry  ceaselessly 
sent  his  ideas  for  The  Oxford  Mercury,  and  there 
were  long  letters  from  David,  letters  full  of  the  sun 
and  the  open  fields.  He  was  staying  in  Hereford- 
shire, quite  near  the  house  which  Lady  Sheldon  had 
taken  for  the  summer,  and  Ray  looked  forward  with 
an  intense  pleasure  to  seeing  him  again. 

Eventually  London  became  too  hot  to  work,  and 
he  packed  his  books,  and  departed  to  join  Lady 
Sheldon.  It  was  really  rather  a  relief  to  get  away 
from  this  city  of  hot  asphalt  and  perspiring 
crowds,  and  as  he  greeted  his  mother  at  Hereford 
Station  she  was  so  ecstatic  in  her  praise  of  Raven 
Court  that  Ray  felt  that  her  descriptions  must  in- 
deed be  preludious  of  bliss  to  come.  This  was  so 
perfect  a  July  that  any  place  in  the  country  must 
be  lovely.  But  nothing  that  he  had  figured  or  im- 
agined approached  even  vaguely  to  the  reality.  As 
soon  as  he  saw  the  house,  rose-coloured  and  dream- 
ing in  its  wooded  valley,  he  knew  that  here  would 
be  taken  another  step  in  his  romantic  education. 

They  drove  along  a  broad,  shadowed  road,  which 


MIDSUMMER  MADNESS  153 

sloped  gently  down  to  the  massive  iron  gates,  curi- 
ously wrought  with  ravens  in  black  and  twisted 
iron.  A  sound  of  many  birds  arose  from  a  lake 
which  stretched  away  on  one  side  of  the  drive,  and 
as  they  passed  through  Ray  looked  over  the  water 
and  saw  that  it  was  bright  with  the  flash  of  grey 
and  scarlet  wings.  There  were  birds  everywhere. 
Pink  flamingos  lifted  slender  legs  from  water-lilied 
pools,  where  fountains  of  hyaline  water  splashed 
deliciously  over  broad  and  moss-covered  stones. 
Plumed  and  pranked,  peacocks  stalked  proudly 
under  the  laughing  fauns  that  decorated  an  Italian 
garden.  There  were  summer  ducks  and  mandarin 
ducks  basking  on  the  hot  stones  at  the  edge  of  the 
lake,  and  in  a  great  plane  tree  that  stretched  black 
branches  over  the  polished  waters  was  a  monaul,  a 
sort  of  pheasant  of  the  Himalayas,  shimmering  with 
burnished  copper,  sapphire,  and  purple.  Close  to 
some  steps  that  led  to  a  sunken  lawn  were  standing 
two  cranes,  of  the  palest  shade  of  grey.  They 
opened  their  wings  and  danced  away  as  the  car  ap- 
proached. 

"What  does  it  all  mean?"  he  said  to  his  mother, 
when  they  got  out  of  the  car. 

She  smiled  and  explained.  Lord  Travers,  from 
whom  she  had  rented  the  house,  was  a  great  col- 
lector of  rare  birds,  and  one  of  his  stipulations  had 
been  that  she  should  have  them  properly  looked 
after. 


i54  PATCHWORK 

"Of  course  it  means  dozens  of  men  to  feed  them, 
but  they're  so  beautiful,  and  none  of  them 
bite.  .  .  ." 

Ray  laughed.  He  was  feeling  astonishingly 
happy  at  the  idea  of  spending  the  summer  in  so  per- 
fect a  place.  The  inside  of  the  house  was  no  less 
entrancing.  Nowhere  had  the  walls  been  defaced 
with  papers — instead  one  wandered  through  cor- 
ridors of  dove-coloured  stone,  under  ceilings  thick 
with  oak  beams.  One  looked  down  long  passages 
at  the  end  of  which  gleamed  casement  windows 
through  which  the  light  shone  in  from  the  lake 
outside  and  cast  netted  shadows  on  the  ceiling,  or 
reflected  itself  in  pools  of  silver  light  on  the 
planched  floor.  There  were  Italian  rooms  of  green 
and  gold,  and  English  rooms  of  blue  and  white, 
and  Chinese  rooms  hung  with  flashing  embroideries 
in  which  white-faced  warriors  waved  satin  swords, 
and  clouds  of  silken  fire  spumed  from  the  mouths 
of  twisted  dragons.  Ray's  bedroom  was  hung  with 
a  Japanese  embroidery  across  whose  restless  sur- 
faces white  doves  flitted  through  mazes  of  thickly 
clustering  wisteria. 

But  the  room  which  above  all  he  found  wonder- 
ful was  the  banqueting  hall,  which  was  set  aside 
for  his  own  particular  use.  The  room  was  of  im- 
mense height,  and  its  woodwork  had  not  been  dark- 
ened in  spite  of  its  age,  but  had  been  made  golden 
with  the  passing  of  six  centuries.    Huge  beams,  in 


MIDSUMMER  MADNESS  155 

form  resembling  great  girders,  but  slightly  bent  in 
the  middle,  spanned  the  room  from  side  to  side. 
From  the  centre  of  these,  a  fourfold  clustered 
springing  of  massive  wooden  arches  arose,  and  lost 
itself  in  the  dusk  of  multitudinous  limbs  which 
spread  over  the  ceiling  like  the  branches  of  an 
ancient  cedar.  The  banqueting  hall  occupied  nearly 
one  entire  side  of  the  house,  which  was  built  in  the 
form  of  a  quadrangle  and  reminded  him  at  once  of 
a  tiny  Oxford  College,  or  rather  some  such  college 
as  Magdalene,  Cambridge.  In  the  centre  of  the 
quadrangle  were  great  stone  bowls  filled  with  sweet- 
Johns  of  red  and  white,  and  there  were  many  quaint 
devices  of  carved  brick.  Even  the  gutter-pipes 
were  embossed  and  on  rainy  days  the  water  de- 
scended through  the  puffed-out  cheeks  of  a  grinning 
satyr,  or  by  means  of  the  tail  of  a  curving  griffin. 

It  was  many  days  before  Ray  learnt  half  the 
loveliness  of  Raven  Court.  An  eternity  would 
be  too  short  for  such  a  place  as  this.  It  was 
particularly  wonderful  that  he  had  it  to  share  with 
his  mother,  and  together  they  would  wander  along 
the  flagged  terraces,  over  the  bridge  with  its  stunted 
Japanese  trees  in  their  square  pots,  and  into  the 
sunken  lawn  which  was  always  fringed  with  a  riot 
of  roses,  red  as  wine.  Colour — never  had  he  seen 
such  colour.  There  were  roses  everywhere  in  the 
winding  walks,  and  every  description  of  old- 
fashioned  flower.     Even  the  lake  was  made  brilliant 


156  PATCHWORK 

by  the  birds  that  ceaselessly  troubled  its  waters. 
African  ducks,  with  feathers  like  burnished  glass, 
and  strange  geese  with  ringed  necks.  Flamingos 
and  storks,  pink  and  white,  cranes  and  peacocks, 
grey  and  starry  green.  Here  indeed  was  food  for 
dreams.  Even  the  advent  of  Helen  was  not  enough 
to  disturb  this  cloistered  tranquillity. 

They  all  went  out  to  the  terrace  after  dinner 
on  the  night  of  her  arrival.  Lady  Sheldon  wore 
a  gown  of  silver  lace  which  Ray  had  chosen  from 
forests  of  mannequins  at  Lucile's  but  Helen  was 
dressed  in  a  short  black  frock,  almost  entirely 
covered  with  sequins,  that  gleamed  maliciously  in 
the  twilight.  She  seemed,  indeed,  by  far  the  most 
vigorous  of  the  three. 

"Of  course  these  birds  are  beautiful,"  she  said, 
and  seated  herself  on  a  stone  balustrade,  "but  .  .  ." 

Lady  Sheldon  went  to  her.  "My  dear,  don't 
please  sit  on  those  stones.    It's  so  dangerous." 

"Why,  are  they  loose?" 

"No — at  least  I  don't  know.  But  you  may  get 
a  chill  or  some  dreadful  disease.  I  can't  remember 
what  it  is,  but  I  know  it's  very  painful." 

Helen  laughed,  a  short  laugh  which  echoed 
coldly. 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right.  And  anyway,  if  I'm  not 
it's  my  own  fault.     I  was  talking  about  the  birds." 

"What  about  them?"  said  Ray. 

Helen  looked  at  him.     "Ray,  you  do  look  so 


MIDSUMMER  MADNESS  157 

absurdly  childish  with  that  cigar.  It  looks  like 
a  cherub  trying  to  be  naughty." 

Lady  Sheldon  stroked  his  hair.  "He  is  a  cherub, 
and  he's  never  naughty." 

Ray  smiled.  "All  of  which  is  very  charming 
of  both  of  you,  but  I  want  to  know  why  Helen 
'buts'  my  birds." 

"Are  they  your  birds?" 

"Certainly.    The  birds  of  my  heart." 

"Sentimentalist." 

"Thank  the  Lord— yes." 

"Helen  really  loves  them  as  much  as  you  do, 
Ray,"  said  Lady  Sheldon. 

"I  like  to  see  them,  yes.  But  I  don't  like 
animals  at  all." 

"Oh,  Helen,  how  can  you  call  that  darling  stork 
an  animal?"  Lady  Sheldon  indicated  a  grey  crane 
which  was  peering  at  them  from  under  the  gloom 
of  a  cedar  tree. 

"I  mean  the  animal  kingdom  in  general.  Besides, 
it  isn't  a  stork,  it's  a  crane." 

"Whatever  it  is,  it's  quite  lovely,"  said  Ray. 
"It's  like  Pavlova  in  the  Swan  dance." 

"It  isn't  in  the  least  like  that,  but  it  is  beautiful, 
I  know,  to  look  at.  But  inside  it's  probably  full 
of  raging  wickedness."  She  looked  at  Ray 
mischievously. 

"Why?" 

"All    animals    are.    They're    perfectly    beastly. 


158  PATCHWORK 

It's  merely  because  you  don't  know  anything  about 
them  that  you  think  they're  nice.  It's  typical  of 
your  whole  attitude  to  life." 

"Helen,  please  don't  talk  about  attitudes  to 
life,"  plaintively  said  Lady  Sheldon. 

"Very  well,  but  it  is.  I  like  Ray  so  much  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  I'm  his  cousin,  and  that's 
why  I  want  him  to  understand.  Take  pigs,  for 
instance." 

"I  don't  want  to  take  pigs,"  returned  Ray. 

"Perhaps  you  don't,  but  you  ought  to.  I  was 
staying  at  a  farmhouse  last  summer  .  .  ." 

"I  know  all  about  that,"  interrupted  Ray. 
"You  disorganised  all  the  cows." 

"Shut  up.  I  was  staying  at  a  farmhouse,  and 
I  learnt  a  good  deal  there  about  all  sorts  of  animals." 

"How  very  nasty  of  you ! " 

"It  wasn't.  It  was  the  animals  who  were  nasty. 
When  a  pig  is  ill  all  the  others  immediately  rush  at 
it  and  try  to  tear  it  to  pieces." 

Ray  stirred  uneasily.  "That's  the  survival  of 
the  fittest." 

"Well,  it  doesn't  fit  in  very  well  with  your 
sentimental  theory,  does  it?" 

He  was  silent. 

"It's  the  same  with  all  animals.  Cats.  Ray 
loves  cats,  and  yet  to  see  a  cat  with  a  mouse  is 
enough  to  make  one  lose  one's  faith  in  God.    And 


MIDSUMMER  MADNESS  159 

they  eat  their  own  kittens.  So  do  pigs — not  that 
pigs  have  kittens,  but  they  eat  them  in  any  case. 
They're  all  beastly.  You  see  a  wretched  little 
chicken  with  a  lame  leg,  and  all  the  others  will 
peck  it  to  death.  Even  horrid  things  like  frogs 
kill  each  other.  The  young  ones  get  on  the 
back  of  the  old  ones  and  slowly  throttle  them  to 
death.  .  .  ." 

"Helen,  why  do  you  want  to  talk  about  these 
things?" 

"Merely  because  it  does  you  good.  I  hate 
and  detest  animals.  They're  like  men  without 
the  restraining  influences  of  our  rapidly  vanishing 
civilisation." 

There  was  silence  for  a  few  moments.  That 
is  to  say,  they  stopped  talking,  although  there  were 
always  cries  of  distant  birds  and  the  silver  plash 
of  fountains. 

"I  do  think  animals  might  be  nicer,  certainly," 
at  last  said  Lady  Sheldon.  "I  always  wondered 
why  pigs  were  so  ugly.  If  God  made  pigs — and 
I  suppose  he  did — I  think  he  must  have  done  it  as 
a  joke.  And  I  think  it  was  rather  a  bad  joke.  It 
would  have  been  just  as  easy  to  cover  them  with 
feathers  and  to  have  given  them  eyelashes." 
They  laughed. 

"But  wouldn't  it?  It  would  be  just  as  easy 
to  make  a  pig  with  feathers  as  to  make  one  with- 


160  PATCHWORK 

out.  As  it  is,  pigs  are  really  not  quite  nice.  I 
always  feel  they  ought  to  be  covered  up."  She 
sighed. 

"Mother,  you're  taking  Helen's  side." 

"No,  I'm  not,  because  she's  far  too  clever.  But 
I  think  there  was  something  in  what  she  said.  .  .  ." 

There  was.  That  night  the  air  was  rent  with 
savage  cries,  and  when  they  came  down  in  the 
morning  it  was  to  learn  that  the  grey  crane  which 
they  had  watched  the  night  before  had  killed  the 
most  beautiful  of  the  white  peacocks.  The  rose 
garden  was  strewn  with  white  feathers. 

For  some  days  Ray  found  his  mental  equilibrium 
seriously  disturbed,  and  he  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief 
when  a  week  later  Helen  departed  on  a  lightning 
visit  to  New  York. 

The  next  visitor  to  Raven  Court  was  far  more 
congenial.  Ray,  as  soon  as  he  had  settled  down, 
determined  that  here  was  an  ideal  setting  for  some 
of  his  Oxford  friends,  and  he  was  delighted  when 
David  promised  to  come.  He  had  had  some 
misgivings  about  asking  a  friend  he  had  known  for 
so  short  a  time,  but  they  quickly  vanished  when  he 
arrived. 

Lady  Sheldon  at  once  fell  in  love  with  him, 
especially  when  after  dinner  he  danced  a  stately 
waltz  with  her  in  the  banqueting  hall.  "So  good- 
looking,    Ray,    and    such   a    marvellous    dancer." 


MIDSUMMER  MADNESS  161 

David  indeed  seemed  to  be  always  dancing.  He 
chased  the  cranes  in  order  that  he  might  imitate 
their  pretty  walk  and  invented  a  cockatoo  fox-trot 
which  he  performed  before  the  white  cockatoos  that 
screamed  shrilly  in  the  Queen  Anne  parlour. 

Together  they  explored  the  woods  and  bathed 
in  the  slowly  running  river.  Those  were  halcyon 
days.  David  seemed  to  be  the  incarnation  of 
eternal  youth. 

"This  is  priceless,  isn't  it?"  he  said  to  Ray 
towards  the  end  of  his  visit. 

Ray  nodded.  "It's  principally  priceless  because 
you're  here,"  he  said. 

David  laughed.  "I  don't  suppose  I  shall  ever 
see  much  of  you  anywhere  else." 

"Why?" 

"Well,  at  Oxford  you're  always  so  infernally 
busy,  and  surrounded  by  masses  of  clever  people." 

Ray  frowned.  He  had  almost  forgotten  Oxford 
in  these  summer  months.  While  he  had  worked  in 
London  he  had  still  managed  to  retain  something 
of  the  academic  atmosphere,  but  here  he  had  merely 
drifted.  Hardly  any  work  had  been  done,  even 
his  piano-playing  had  been  neglected.  But  still, 
he  was  not  sorry  that  he  had  so  spent  his  time. 
His  mind  seemed  to  have  acquired  a  richness  which 
previously  it  had  lacked.  It  had  been  stored  with 
strange  and  glowing  colours.  Even  David  would 
hardly  understand  how  deeply  he  had  been  affected, 


1 62  PATCHWORK 

and  often  he  would  make  some  excuse  and  wander 
off  alone  to  paddle  a  solitary  canoe  down  the  iris- 
haunted  river,  or  to  explore  the  quaint  old  books 
which  he  found  in  the  Jacobean  library.  It  was 
delightful,  too,  to  sit  in  the  banqueting  hall  at  night, 
long  after  the  rest  of  the  house  was  asleep,  to  sit  in 
one  of  the  huge  chairs  and  allow  those  dreams  to 
come  which  were  most  beautiful.  If  he  looked 
out  on  one  side  he  saw  the  courtyard  which  had 
reminded  him  so  strangely  of  a  little  Oxford 
college.  The  moon  would  shine  in  and  gild  with 
faint  silver  the  flower-crowned  cupids,  and  the  scent 
of  lavender,  which  grew  in  thick  bushes  beneath 
the  window,  drifted  up  and  filled  his  brain  with 
ecstasy.  And  on  the  other  side  was  the  lake, 
rippling  now  and  again  with  tiny  flashes  of  gold, 
or  streaked  with  a  trail  of  luminous  bubbles  as  some 
bird  swam  across  to  the  shadow  of  the  cedars  on  the 
far  bank.  There  was  a  cedar  just  outside  his  bed- 
room window,  through  which  the  moon  shone 
every  night,  and  always  in  its  branches  was  perched 
a  white  peacock,  its  marvellous  tail  drifting  down 
from  the  black  boughs,  its  delicate  head  outlined 
against  the  great  orange  circle  of  the  moon. 

On  the  last  Sunday  they  decided  to  go  to 
church.  Ray  had  been  against  the  idea,  because 
he  imagined  the  service  would  be  dreadful,  and 
that  the  harmonium  would  be  out  of  tune.  But 
his   mother   had   insisted,   because  she  had  been 


MIDSUMMER  MADNESS  163 

suddenly  seized  with  qualms  as  to  the  example 
she  should  set  to  those  who  were  temporarily  her 
tenants. 

"Shall  I  come  too?"  said  David. 

"Of  course,"  Ray  replied.  "Only  you  mustn't 
dance  up  the  aisle." 

One  reached  the  church  through  fields  of  long 
grass  shot  with  the  random  scarlet  of  poppies.  A 
tiny  church  it  was,  of  the  same  stone,  rose  and 
dove-coloured,  as  Raven  Court  itself.  Ray  was 
enchanted  with  the  idea  of  a  church  in  a  field,  and 
still  more  enchanted  when  they  reached  the  door 
and  smelt  incense  drifting  out  into  the  open  air, 
mingling  deliciously  with  the  sweetness  of  the 
honeysuckle  which  clustered  in  great  feathery  bushes 
outside  the  heavy  doors. 

"Lord  Travers  is  very  High  Church,  you  see," 
whispered  his  mother  as  they  entered. 

Ray  felt  that  her  comment  was  unnecessary. 
The  service  was  an  exquisite  mingling  of  naivete 
and  culture.  The  harmonium  that  swelled  its 
tiny  bellows  with  Gregorian  chants,  the  red-cheeked 
ploughboys  clad  in  lace  and  scarlet,  swinging  the 
bronze  censers,  the  little  priest  gorgeously  capari- 
soned in  green  and  gold — there  was  an  astonish- 
ing charm  about  this  scarcely  concealed  Romanism 
springing  up  so  unexpectedly  in  a  country  field.  He 
could  not  help  thinking,  as  he  sat  down,  that  it  was 
like  meeting  the  Pope  in  a  wood. 


1 64  PATCHWORK 

Why  did  a  service  of  this  nature  always  make 
him  feel  so  extraordinarily  happy?  After  all,  he 
had  been  through  all  this  phase  before.  Candles 
and  incense  were  part  of  everybody's  romantic 
education.  And  yet,  here  he  was  again,  excited  as 
any  schoolboy  after  his  first  taste  of  incense. 

The  wind  was  on  the  meadows  when  they  came 
away,  and  in  the  sky  were  great  summer  clouds, 
white  and  feathery. 

"I  think,"  he  said  to  David,  "I  must  be  getting 
young  again." 

But  he  knew,  with  loveliness  like  this  around 
him,  that  there  could  never  be  such  a  thing  as  age. 


CHAPTER  II 

REACTION 

RAY  regretted  intensely  that  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  return  to  London  before  going  to 
Oxford.  He  felt  it  would  have  been  far  more 
fitting  to  spend  his  last  night  at  Raven  Court  by 
himself,  and  then  to  have  motored  to  Oxford  through 
the  country — to  have  stepped  from  one  dream  to 
another.  The  idea  of  London,  even  for  a  fortnight, 
seemed  incredibly  harsh  after  so  rich  a  sowing-time 
of  dreams,  and  when  he  finally  said  good-bye  to  the 
old  housekeeper  he  was  as  near  tears  as  any  well- 
bred  young  man  will  ever  admit.  Everything 
seemed  so  oblivious  of  his  going — not  a  flamingo 
that  turned  its  pink  head  to  bid  him  God-speed, 
while  the  cranes  were  so  disdainful  that  they  refused 
even  to  move  out  of  the  way  of  the  car,  and  had  to 
be  beaten  off  with  sticks  by  an  indignant  chauffeur. 
London  was  even  worse  than  he  expected.  The 
crowds  were  ten  times  larger  after  the  solitude  of 
the  country,  and  the  streets  seemed  choked  with 
dirt.  Even  Curzon  Street  was  dingy  and  colour- 
less, and  not  all  the  roses  that  he  could  buy  at 

165 


1 66  PATCHWORK 

Girard's  could  give  his  room  anything  of  the 
fragrance  which  he  had  left  behind. 

However,  he  soon  found  that  in  the  excitement 
of  preparing  for  Oxford,  Raven  Court  gradually 
faded  into  the  background,  an  exquisite  mirage 
which  he  would  not  readily  disturb.  A  new  term 
at  Oxford  seemed  to  promise  fresh  fields  and 
pastures.  He  had  wondered  towards  the  end  of 
the  long  vacation  whether  he  were  marking  time, 
whether  he  really  would  be  able  to  find  new  in- 
terests, whether  he  had  not  already  lived  so  fully 
the  Oxford  life  that  the  remainder  of  his  career 
there  would  be  bathos.  However,  even  a  fortnight 
in  London  had  given  him  once  more  the  zest  of 
living  for  the  sake  of  life:  he  felt  that  it  would  be 
terrible  if  he  were  to  find  that  Oxford  had  no  other 
fruit  to  give  him  than  that  which  he  had  already 
tasted. 

He  remembered  on  the  last  day  that  by  this 
time  Helen  had  come  back  from  New  York,  and  he 
wanted  to  see  what  impressions  America  had  made 
upon  her.  Contrast  was,  after  all,  the  essence  of 
most  of  Ray's  enjoyments,  and  so  he  decided  to  go 
round  after  tea. 

Helen's  flat  in  Clarges  Street  was  quite  trans- 
formed. It  was  so  full  of  harsh  colours,  so  rich 
in  angles  and  triangles  and  cubes,  that  it  gave  the 
impression  of  a  vast  patchwork  quilt.  The  sitting- 
room  was  papered  in  black,  with  a  black  carpet 


REACTION  167 

and  a  blue  ceiling,  and  there  were  black  divans  on 
which  huge  striped  cushions  sprawled,  cushions  of 
crimson  and  blue  and  gold,  cut  up  into  strips  that 
made  them  look  like  Neapolitan  ices.  A  huge 
and  modern  picture  of  New  York  at  night  had  been 
let  into  the  wall  over  the  blue  mantelpiece,  and 
some  Italian  cubist  pannels  garishly  grimaced  on 
either  side  of  the  tall  windows.  The  dining-room 
was  in  the  same  style,  white,  all  white  except  the 
yellow  curtains,  which  flamed  like  sunlight,  and 
the  cottage  furniture  painted  with  crude  splashes 
of  yellow  and  black.  Even  the  music-room,  with 
its  gold  walls  and  its  shiny  black  piano,  had  been 
given  over  to  modernity.  A  Bolshevik  composition 
called  "Gold  Fish"  lay  on  the  music  rest,  its 
cover  portraying  in  orange  semicircles  what  Ray 
took  to  be  the  quintessence  of  piscatorial  melody. 

"Do  you  like  it?"  said  Helen,  after  she  had 
shown  Ray  over. 

"Not  in  the  least,  I  am  afraid." 

"How  horrid  of  you!" 

Ray  laughed  and  sat  down  at  the  piano.  He 
tried  to  play  "Gold  Fish,"  but  gave  up  the  attempt. 
"I  wish  you  hadn't  gone  to  New  York.  I'm  sure 
that's  the  cause  of  all  this."  He  indicated  the 
curious  music  on  the  piano  and  let  his  eyes  rest  for 
a  moment  on  some  gilded  poppy-pods  which  flaunted 
their  painted  heads  by  his  side. 

"Of  course  it's  the  cause  of  it.     And  I'm  damned 


1 68  PATCHWORK 

glad  it  is."  She  spoke  eagerly.  How  like  a  boy  she 
was,  with  her  flushed  face  and  her  live  black  hair! 
"You  see  .  .  ."  She  sat  down  on  the  music  stool 
which  was  quite  big  enough  for  three  or  four  people. 

"I  see  .  .  .  that,"  said  Ray,  pointing  to  the 
"Gold  Fish." 

"Oh,  bother  that  thing!"  She  took  it  up  and 
threw  it  impatiently  across  the  polished  floor,  where 
it  slid  under  a  sofa.  "That's  nothing.  It's  the 
whole  attitude  that  matters." 

"That's  exactly  what  I  was  complaining  of." 

"Look  here,  Ray,  why  are  you  so  impossibly  out 
of  date?" 

"Am  I?" 

"Yes,  you  are.  At  least  you  seem  to  be  now 
I've  been  to  New  York." 

"Oh,  well,  every  one  in  England  does  after  that, 
I  suppose." 

"No,  not  necessarily.  Of  course,  they're  all 
slower,  but  that's  not  the  point.  You're  exception- 
ally bad.  You  simply  live  in  the  nineties,  you — oh, 
I  don't  know."  She  played  some  whole-tone  chords 
so  loudly  that  Ray  put  on  the  soft  pedal.  She 
stopped.  "There — that's  what  you're  always 
doing!" 

"What?" 

"Putting  on  the  soft  pedal." 

"Must  you  talk  in  symbols?" 

"I'm  not  talking  in  symbols.    I'm  talking  plain 


REACTION  169 

English.  It's  perfectly  clear.  All  that  you  do  is 
like  that.  I  don't  mean  that  you're  soft  yourself — 
it  would  be  an  insult  to  say  that  after  all  you've  gone 
through.  You're  merely  out  of  date.  I  saw  that 
as  soon  as  I  got  to  Oxford.  You're  simply  living  in 
a  different  world  to  all  the  rest  of  the  people  there. 
It  was  the  same  at  Raven  Court." 

"Well,  it's  a  pretty  strenuous  world  sometimes, 
at  Oxford  at  any  rate." 

"I  know.  And  that's  why  I  think  you  ought 
to  know  what  you're  about.  By  the  way,  d'you  go 
back  to  Oxford  to-morrow?" 

"I  go  up,"  corrected  Ray. 

"Up,  then.  Well,  when  /  was  in  Oxford  every- 
thing was  quite  delightful  of  course,  and  you  seemed 
to  know  everybody  and  to  be  doing  everything,  well, 
just  as  it  used  to  be  done  before  the  war.  Your 
rooms  might  have  been  occupied  by  any  aesthete  in 
the  nineties.  Your  conversation  was  brilliant,  but 
it  was  simply  a  rechauffe  of  'The  Importance  of 
being  Earnest.'  " 

"My  dear  Helen,  I  almost  forget  what  Oxford 
is  like  now,  but  don't  you  see  that  my  whole  life  at 
Oxford  has  been  devoted  to  proving  the  importance 
of  being  frivolous?" 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mean  such  an  enormous  lot  that  I  can't 
possibly  say  it  all  now.  But  I  think  you  realised 
pretty  correctly  what  my  attitude  was,  and  I  may  as 


1 7o  PATCHWORK 

well  say  that  it  was  quite  intentional.  I  want  Ox- 
ford to  be  what  it  was.  I  want  people  to  be  charm- 
ing again  and  not  to  go  about  in  standard  suits  and 
look  horribly  earnest  and  put  cubist  paintings  on 
their  walls  and  talk  about  the  war.  It's  so  damned 
feeble.  It's  really  putting  on  the  loud  pedal,  which 
is  much  worse  than  putting  on  the  soft." 

"Now  you're  talking  in  symbols  yourself." 

"Well,  you  started  it.  And  anyway  it  illustrates 
pretty  well  what  I  mean.  If  you  wear  futurist 
jumpers  and  join  the  Labour  Party  and  say  that 
Chopin  is  out  of  date,  and  that  nobody's  any  good 
but  Stravinsky,  and  if  you  read  'Wheels,'  and 
adore  Robert  Smillie,  and  talk  about  skyscrapers, 
it  shows  one  thing  quite  clearly,  and  that  is  that 
the  war  has  deprived  you  of  your  mental  balance." 

"But  don't  you  see  that  you  ought  to  have  been 
deprived  of  your  mental  balance?  You  ought  to  be 
mad.     You  can't  ignore  these  things." 

"Oh  yes,  I  can." 

"Well,  if  you  do  you  merely  become  out  of 
date." 

"Helen,  you're  really  quite  a  clever  girl  and  I 
like  you  very  much — no,  please  don't  pinch  my 
knees — but  you  really  don't  know  what  you're 
talking  about." 

"Perhaps  I  don't,  but  still.  .  .  ." 

"Wait  a  minute.  What  you  don't  understand 
is  that  I'm  doing  this  all  quite  deliberately,  and  for 


REACTION  171 

absolutely  altruistic  motives.  I'd  do  it  to  the  whole 
world  if  I  could,  and  not  merely  to  Oxford.  I  want 
— I  want  so  damnably  to  forget,  and  I  want  other 
people  to  forget.  It  may  be  weak,  but  on  the  whole 
I  can't  think  it  is.  I  think  it's  much  weaker  to  give 
in.  If  you  rush  about  wildly  and  paint  your  rooms 
all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow,  if  you  can't  find  any 
pleasure  in  simple  melodies  or  in  amusing  conversa- 
tion, and  if  you  scream  at  the  top  of  your  voice  that 
there's  been  a  war  and  that  you're  not  going  to  let 
any  one  forget  it,  well,  then,  I  think  you're  weak, 
that's  all.  That's  why  I  think  the  average  Oxford 
man  to-day  is  weak.  If  he's  an  athlete  he  talks  like 
a  sergeant-major,  if  he's  a  scholar  he  Pelmanises,  if 
he's  an  aesthete  he  buys  'Wheels'  and  jazz  pictures. 
That's  the  attitude  I'm  fighting  and  I'm  doing  it 
pretty  effectively.  Everybody  in  Oxford  knows  me, 
and  I  know  everybody.  That  isn't  so  bad  for  two 
terms.  And  after  a  year  I  believe  I  really  shall  be 
able  to  make  things  better.  It's  all  I  want  to  do. 
I  only  care  about  Oxford,  I  don't  care  a  damn  about 
myself.  .  .  ." 

He  paused.  Helen  got  up  and  slid  across  the 
floor.     "All  right.     I  give  in." 

"You  don't  really,  you  know." 

"Yes,  I  do,  for  the  moment." 

"Well,  prove  it  by  putting  that  awful  cushion 
outside  the  door.  And  then  I'll  play  your 
character." 


1 72  PATCHWORK 

"Will  you?  Here  it  goes,  then."  A  flash  of 
green  and  the  room  seemed  relieved  of  a  discordant 
note. 

"I  think  I  ought  to  start  with  a  sort  of  fugue — 
very  straight  and  bare,  and  then  put  in  a  lot  of 
Debussy  chords  in  the  treble."  He  improvised  as 
he  talked.  Ray's  improvisations  on  the  characters 
of  his  friends  had  been  one  of  the  favourite  enter- 
tainments of  Oxford  gatherings.  He  had  made 
many  friends  that  way,  and  also  a  few  enemies,  as 
when  he  played  "Chu  Chin  Chow"  to  illustrate  a 
particularly  aggressive  Rugger  blue,  or  a  mixture 
of  "Rule,  Britannia,"  "Home,  Sweet  Home,"  and 
"Three  Blind  Mice"  for  the  president  of  the  con- 
servative club. 

Helen's   was   a    fascinating    character    to   play. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  still  playing,  "I'm  not  sure 
whether  what  I  said  about  being  altruistic  was  really 
true.  I  probably  do  all  these  things  merely  because 
they  amuse  me,  and  bring  me  into  the  limelight.  I 
do  like  limelight  .  .  .  (there,  that  trill  shows  the 
frivolous  side  of  your  nature) — limelight  and 
applause^  I  should  have  been  a  pianist  except 
that  one  wouldn't  be  famous  enough.  I'm  most 
horribly  ambitious  really — (listen  to  this  tune  a 
second,  rather  sentimental,  but  good  I  think) — and 
I  want  to  be  a  much  bigger  thing  than  a  pianist. 
Anyway  I  hope  I  shall — (this  sort  of  chorale  isn't 
you  a  bit,  but  I  like  it) — I  can  dream,  whatever 


REACTION  173 

happens.  Don't  take  away  my  dreams,  don't  take 
away  my  dreams.  .  .  ." 

He  forgot  that  he  was  playing  Helen's  character, 
and  started  to  make  up  a  sentimental  ballad. 

"Don't  take  away  my  dreams,  Leave  me  a  little 
love,  Tumty  turn  tumty  turn,  Tumty  turn  skies 
above." 

He  switched  round.  "How  damned  easy  it  is 
to  make  up  that  sort  of  rot!" 

"It  may  be  for  you.  Anyway,  I  think  I  want 
my  green  cushion  after  that." 

"Well,  then,  I  shall  go." 

"No,  don't." 

He  looked  at  his  watch.  "Yes,  I  shall  have  to 
in  any  case,  or  I  shan't  have  time  to  dress." 

As  he  went  back  to  Curzon  Street  he  felt  full 
of  fierce  life.  Piccadilly  was  a  coloured  cauldron 
of  painted  women  and  sharp-faced  men.  The 
roar  of  busses  and  the  hoarse  braying  of  motor- 
horns,  the  writhing  pavements,  the  pungent  drifts 
of  scent  and  petrol — there  was  something  astonish- 
ingly stimulating  about  them  all.  Why  should  he 
go  back  to  Curzon  Street  yet?  He  felt  that 
he  could  not  stand  its  tranquillity  and  the  soft 
atmosphere  of  its  thickly  carpeted  rooms.  Helen 
had  certainly  filled  him  with  some  of  her  own 
modernity.  The  thought  of  Oxford  on  the  morrow 
seemed  suddenly  flat  and  dull.     He  sprang  on  a 


i74  PATCHWORK 

bus  going  east.  He  must  at  all  costs  get  noise 
and  fresh  air. 

What  wonderful  things  busses  were!  Here  in 
his  front  seat  all  London  curved  before  him.  He 
felt  immensely  superior  to  those  gibbering  beings 
that  passed  beneath.  Where  he  was  going  he  had 
no  idea — he  did  not  particularly  care.  These 
long  rows  of  lighted  windows,  these  stained  and 
blackened  streets,  were  strangely  impersonal.  They 
seemed  merely  to  form  a  background  for  his  own 
figure. 

Of  course,  what  he  had  said  to  Helen  had  been 
merely  the  expression  of  a  mood.  True,  it  was 
the  dominant  mood  in  his  personality,  but  it  was  a 
mood  none  the  less.  What  an  egotist  he  was!  He 
closed  his  eyes  and  always  he  saw  a  picture  of 
himself. 

First  he  saw  himself  marvellously  dressed  in 
a  cloak  of  green,  spun  with  silver  leaves  and 
decorated  with  peacocks'  feathers,  walking  slowly 
and  with  raised  head  down  a  vast  hall,  crowded 
on  each  side  with  dwarfs  and  clowns.  There 
were  thousands  of  them,  with  white  faces  and 
fluttering  hands,  and  they  all  moved  their  lips 
and  gesticulated  as  he  passed.  On  and  on  he 
walked,  sometimes  to  the  sound  of  music,  some- 
times to  no  sound  but  that  of  the  rustling  of  his 
own  cloak,  but  always  there  were  the  dwarfs  and 
clowns,  lined  up  by  the  wall  or  standing  in  little 


REACTION  175 

groups    together.     And   their   eyes   were   on   him. 

Then  suddenly  the  vision  vanished  and  he  saw 
himself  again,  whirling  over  the  heads  of  a  huge 
crowd  of  every  description  of  man  and  woman. 
Black-winged  and  plumed  with  scarlet  he  flew, 
on  and  on  till  he  left  them  behind  and  landed  on 
a  bare  mountain  where  he  delivered  a  speech  to 
infinite  spaces  of  blue. 

He  found  a  great  amusement  in  these  dreams. 
The  rhythm  of  the  bus  seemed  to  have  an  almost 
sexual  stimulation.  It  was  like  being  abducted 
by  some  great  purring  cat.  And  yet  the  cool 
wind  should  have  blown  away  such  livid  imagin- 
ings at  these.  He  wondered  what  his  fellow 
passengers  were  thinking.  That  great  fat  police- 
man, with  his  pudding  face  and  his  hefty  Rabe- 
laisian figure,  through  what  paradise  of  thought 
was  he  making  his  sturdy  way?  The  little  clerk, 
with  his  white  cheeks  and  his  bright  black  eyes, 
had  he  ever  lived  as  Ray  had  lived?  And  this 
prostitute,  with  her  cheeks  aflame  with  artificial 
fires,  her  hair  of  tinsel  gold,  and  her  mouth  reddened 
by  the  shame  of  many  alien  kisses — she  yet  seemed 
to  keep  about  her  the  subtle  attraction  of  poisonous 
things.  For  a  moment  he  lived  the  lives  of  all 
these  people.  With  the  policeman  he  trod  silent 
streets  and  watched  the  lamps  pale  in  unearthly 
dawns,  with  the  clerk  he  sweated  over  great  books 
of   twisting   figures,    and   with    the   prostitute   he 


i76  PATCHWORK 

entered  strange  houses  and  tasted  with  her  the 
humiliation  of  passions  which  she  could  not  share. 

Poor  policeman,  poor  clerk,  poor  prostitute! 
After  all,  life  itself  was  nothing  but  a  vast  prosti- 
tution, whether  it  was  of  the  brain,  or  the  heart, 
or  the  body.  Perhaps  this  woman,  in  spite  of 
her  broken  body,  was  yet  beautiful  in  spirit.  She 
was  probably  a  good  deal  better  than  he  himself. 
Amid  all  this  sordidness  he  himself  felt  sordid, 
so  used  had  he  become  to  taking  the  colour  of 
his  surroundings.  He  wondered  with  an  intense 
interest  what  sort  of  life  this  woman  really  led. 
He  could  well  understand  that  it  might  at  first 
be  vivid  and  attractive.  Every  evening  to  set  out 
from  her  stale-smelling  rooms,  to  walk  and  walk, 
smiling  always,  to  find  the  night's  lover  and  the 
night's  lust.  The  nights — yes,  they  would  be 
wonderful  enough,  but  the  mornings?  Perhaps 
not  so  terrible  when  she  was  still  young — but  when 
she  was  growing  old?  When  her  cheeks  were 
raddled  and  her  neck  had  lost  its  contours,  so  that 
the  powder  merely  made  her  look  more  desolate, 
and  the  paint  was  like  the  paint  on  the  face  of 
a  clown? 

The  bus  suddenly  stopped  with  a  jerk,  and  Ray 
glanced  over  the  side  to  see  where  he  was.  "Brick 
Lane,  E."  The  name  seemed  in  some  way  appro- 
priate. Should  he  get  out?  He  rather  wanted 
to  follow  this  woman,  whose  grotesque  hat  was 


REACTION  177 

already  disappearing  down  the  stairs.  He  sprang 
up  and  went  after  her.  For  a  moment  he  thought 
she  had  disappeared.  Then  he  saw  that  she  was 
standing  undecided  in  front  of  an  eating  shop  in 
which  the  lights  blazed  on  rows  of  fly-blown  food 
behind  the  white-lettered  glass.  Forgetting  his 
self-consciousness  he  went  up  to  her. 

"I  beg  your  pardon." 

She  turned  and  looked  at  him.  For  a  moment 
she  seemed  startled.  Then  she  drew  herself  up 
and  twisted  her  cheeks  into  the  professional  smile. 

"Fancy  meeting  you  here!"  Her  voice  might 
once  have  been  musical,  but  now  it  was  only 
pathetic. 

"It  is  funny,  isn't  it?"  said  Ray.  They  both 
laughed.  Somehow  Ray  did  not  feel  nearly  as 
embarrassed  as  he  had  imagined.  "I  wondered  if 
you'd  care  to  dine  with  me?" 

He  looked  at  her  anxiously.  Whether  she  would 
dine,  and  what  she  would  think,  and  what  other 
people  would  think,  he  could  not  imagine. 

"Thanks  very  much.  It's  very  kind  of  you, 
I'm  sure.     But  you're  only  a  kid,  aren't  you?" 

Ray  wondered  if  the  question  was  prompted  by 
a  care  on  her  part  for  his  moral  well-being. 

He  smiled.  "In  any  case  I'm  rather  hungry, 
and  I  should  be  awfully  pleased  if  you'd  dine." 

She  looked  at  him  curiously.  His  flushed  face 
was  certainly  attractive,  and  his  well-cut  clothes 


i78  PATCHWORK 

seemed  to  indicate  prosperity.  She  put  her  arm 
through  his. 

"Very  well,  dearie,  only  don't  say  I  led  you 
astray,  will  you?" 

How  thin  and  wasted  sounded  the  "dearie" 
and  the  laugh  by  which  it  was  followed!  Ray 
wanted  to  explain  that  he  had  no  intention  of 
being  led  astray,  but  he  felt  that  she  might  think 
him  insulting.  In  any  case  he  would  be  able  to 
slip  away  after  dinner.  They  walked,  almost 
without  speaking,  while  she  described  the  restaurant 
at  which  they  might  dine.  It  was  not  nearly  so 
bad  as  Ray  had  imagined,  and  its  lights  twinkling 
from  a  dark  side  street  were  almost  cheerful  in 
this  wilderness  of  noisy  trams  and  cheap  shops. 

"I  don't  often  meet  many  of  my  friends  here," 
she  said  as  they  sat  down. 

"I  suppose  you  don't,"  replied  Ray. 

"I'm  still  in  the  West  End,  you  see." 

"Of  course." 

The  waiter  came  up.  Ray  ordered  champagne 
— he  felt  that  any  other  drink  would  be  out  of 
place  in  such  a  strange  meal.  The  food,  however, 
was  excellent. 

"What's  your  name?"  asked  his  companion, 
over  some  cabbage  soup. 

He  told  her.     "And  yours?" 

"Mine's  Ailsa,"  she  said. 

"Ailsa  what?" 


REACTION  179 

"Oh,  never  mind.  You  won't  be  calling  me 
Miss  anything,  I  dare  say."  She  leered  across  the 
table  at  him.  Ray  wished  that  she  would  smile 
naturally.  She  was  not  bad  looking — about  thirty, 
with  fair  hair  and  a  pretty  complexion,  though 
it  was  fading  rapidly.  Beneath  her  monstrous 
feathered  hat  her  face  seemed  of  an  almost  elfin 
smallness,  and  her  figure  had  not  yet  lost  a  certain 
slim  attractiveness. 

Under  the  influence  of  champagne  her  tongue 
was  loosed.    She  sighed. 

"Well,  I  never  thought  I  should  come  to  this." 

"Why  did  you?"  He  asked  the  question 
simply. 

She  seemed  to  forget  for  a  moment  that  she  had 
been  bought,  and  told  him  quite  naturally  of  her  life. 
She  had  apparently  been  a  clergyman's  daughter, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  had  taken  up  work 
as  a  W.  A.  A.  C,  at  a  camp  at  Neasden.  Here  she 
had  been  seduced  by  the  adjutant,  who,  after  he  had 
gratified  himself,  abandoned  her,  and  the  rest  had 
been  easy  going.  She  told  her  tale  with  a  strange 
blend  of  naivete  and  coarseness. 

"Fancy  me  telling  you  all  this,"  she  said,  as  she 
gulped  some  champagne  to  refresh  her  after  her 
unwonted  revelation. 

"I  think  it  was  very  nice  of  you  to  tell  me," 
said  Ray. 

He    looked    round    the    little    dining-room    and 


180  PATCHWORK 

appreciated  to  the  full  the  contrast  between  this  and 
the  life  he  would  be  leading  on  the  morrow.  Never 
had  Oxford  seemed  more  remote.  Here  everything 
seemed  as  garish  as  the  lamps  of  imitation  alabaster 
which  cast  their  light  mercilessly  on  the  dirty  table- 
cloths. Here  the  tragedies  of  life  were  laid  bare  to 
the  bone.  There  was  no  background  of  grey  and  of 
silver  to  veil  them  or  to  disguise  their  repulsiveness. 
This  hot  little  room  with  its  yellow  curtains  and 
its  walls  spattered  with  advertisements,  its  tables 
decorated  with  aspidistras  whose  shiny  leaves  caught 
the  light  from  the  little  red-shaded  lamps,  seemed 
the  scene  of  far  greater  passions  than  ever  Oxford 
could  provide.  For  a  moment  he  experienced  a 
great  revulsion  against  his  own  mode  of  existence. 
He  felt  he  had  been  superficial.  He  felt  he  had 
been  attempting  the  impossible  in  trying  to  lead 
once  again  a  life  which  had  passed.  What  right  had 
he  even  to  attempt  to  do  so,  when  there  were  places 
like  this,  and  people  like  the  woman  opposite,  who, 
with  bowed  head  and  nervous  hands,  was  waiting  to 
minister  to  his  pleasure? 

The  whole  room  suddenly  seemed  to  challenge 
him.  The  walls  revealed  the  blistering  sores  in 
their  plaster-work  and  the  curtains  blew  out  in  the 
draught  from  the  open  window  and  waved  their 
frayed  borders,  and  aspidistras  glinted  malevolently 
as  if  they  took  a  pride  in  displaying  to  him  their 


REACTION  181 

desolate  ugliness.  Even  the  cruet  appeared  to  take 
on  a  symbolic  hostility.  The  mustard  in  its  cracked 
glass  was  dry  and  foetid,  like  the  passions  of  the 
people  who  put  it  on  their  pjates.  The  vinegar  was 
old  and  bitter,  like  the  tempers  of  those  who  had 
sprinkled  it  on  their  meagre  salads.  And  the  salt 
had  lost  its  savour. 

"You're  a  deep  one,  aren't  you?" 

He  looked  up.  Ailsa  was  evidently  trying  to 
get  him  into  the  mode  for  revelry.  He  suddenly 
felt  intensely  sorry  for  her.  He  would  have  liked 
to  have  told  her  to  go  and  wash  the  paint  from  her 
face,  and  drink  a  glass  of  hot  milk,  and  go  home  to 
bed,  and  sin  no  more.  Not  that  she  had  been 
sinning.  He  merely  knew  that  she  must  be  tired 
and  lonely  and  despised.  How  was  he  to  get  out 
of  this  evening?  She  would  probably  be  hurt  if  he 
did  not  do  what  was  expected  of  him,  and  the  very 
idea  filled  him  with  shame  and  repulsion. 

He  made  some  laughing  reply,  and  paid  the  bill, 
and  then  got  up  to  go,  with  many  bows  and  scrapes 
from  the  waiter,  propitiated  by  the  unusual  largeness 
of  the  tip.     In  the  door,  he  paused. 

"Get  a  taxi,  dearie,  and  I'll  tell  the  man  where 
to  go." 

He  glanced  at  her.     "All  right.    Just  a  moment." 

He  went  back  through  the  swing  doors  and  took 
an  envelope  from  a  writing  stand  which  stood  in  the 


1 82  PATCHWORK 

hall.  In  it  he  placed  a  ten-pound  note  and 
gummed  the  flap.  Then  he  went  outside  again. 
Ailsa  was  waiting  for  him. 

"Found  it,  dearie?"  she  said  anxiously. 

Ray  nodded.  "You  might  hold  this  a  minute, 
will  you?  And  I'll  go  and  get  a  taxi."  He  pressed 
the  envelope  into  her  hand  and  walked  quickly 
down  the  noisy  street. 

As  soon  as  he  had  turned  the  corner  he  jumped 
on  a  bus  going  to  Piccadilly.  He  wondered  how 
long  Ailsa  would  wait  for  him.  He  wondered  if  she 
would  run  away  as  soon  as  she  discovered  what  the 
envelope  contained,  if  she  would  be  very  angry  or 
very  humiliated.  He  hoped  she  would  be  neither. 
But  he  soon  forgot  about  her  in  the  pleasure  of 
thinking  once  more  about  himself.  How  wonderful 
it  was  to  be  young  and  to  be  able  to  take  so  intense 
a  pleasure  from  what  was,  as  he  realised,  a  very 
ordinary  experience.  If  a  casual  little  dinner  like 
this  could  be  so  exciting,  what  might  he  not  experi- 
ence when  later  he  chose  to  live  in  the  grand  man- 
ner? He  saw  himself  presiding  at  Neronian  feasts 
and  Bacchanalian  orgies,  he  saw  himself  playing  a 
thousand  parts,  in  a  thousand  different  costumes. 
He  would  have  liked  to  dress  in  crimson  and  gold 
and  rush  through  London  in  endless  revelry. 

Curzon  Street  seemed  very  quiet  and  respectable 
when  he  reached  it,  and  Lady  Sheldon  greeted  him 
with  a  sad  litle  reproof  for  being  so  late. 


REACTION  183 

"I'm  so  sorry,  mother."  He  gave  her  a  kiss.  "I 
met  some  people  I  knew." 

He  hated  telling  her  a  lie,  even  if  it  was  an  inno- 
cent one.  He  drank  some  coffee  which  she  had 
kept  for  him  and  together  they  went  up  the  dark 
stairs. 

That  night  he  dreamt  of  Raven  Court,  dreamt 
once  again  that  the  great  crane  had  attacked  the 
white  peacock,  and  that  the  rose-garden  was  strewn 
with  desolate  feathers.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  III 


HOSTILITY 


OXFORD  was  almost  intolerably  unreal  the 
next  day,  and  it  was  some  time  before  Ray 
could  realise  that  he  was  in  the  university  at  all. 
He  seemed  still  to  hear  dimly  the  broken  echo  of 
"Ailsa's"  conversation,  to  visualise  again  the  sordid- 
ness  of  the  dark  streets  he  had  explored  the  night 
before.  Surely  this  white  city,  with  its  happiness 
and  its  chiming  bells,  was  merely  part  of  a  dream 
which  would  leave  him,  when  he  woke  up,  still  on  a 
bus,  going  east?  The  contrast  was  made  the  more 
poignant  since  he  would  no  longer  be  living  in  Bal- 
liol.  It  seemed  that  he  must  set  about  and  make 
an  absolutely  new  start. 

There  were  moments  when  Ray  regretted  in- 
tensely that  he  was  not  returning  to  his  Balliol 
rooms.  It  was  as  though  he  were  leaving  behind 
him  a  part  of  his  personality,  as  though  he  were 
cutting  himself  off  from  the  intimate  and  precious 
motherhood  of  the  College  itself.  But  with  the  ad- 
vent of  a  new  day  the  recollection  of  London  faded 
as  much  into  the  background  as  the  coloured  birds 

184 


HOSTILITY  185 

of  Raven  Court.  Ray  always  lived  for  the  mo- 
ment, and  he  realised  that  he  was  really  entering 
far  more  deeply  into  Oxford  than  he  had  done  be- 
fore. His  Balliol  rooms,  charming  as  they  were, 
might  have  been  anywhere.  There  was  nothing  par- 
ticularly characteristic  about  them  of  that  atmos- 
phere which  above  all  things  he  desired  to  capture. 
But  it  was  very  different  at  95,  The  Broad. 

95,  The  Broad,  is  one  of  the  most  famous  lodg- 
ing-houses in  Oxford.  Tall  and  irregular,  its  green- 
shuttered  windows  blistered  by  the  sun  of  many 
summers,  it  faces  the  Sheldonian,  with  its  back- 
ground of  clustering  grey  buildings.  It  was  largely 
because  of  its  view  that  Ray  had  chosen  this  house. 
His  rooms  were  on  the  second  floor,  and  two  large 
windows  gave  ample  opportunity  for  wasting — if  it 
were  wasting — a  good  deal  of  his  time.  If  he  leant 
out  he  could  see  all  down  the  Broad,  to  the  Corn- 
market  with  its  eternal  flow  of  traffic,  Balliol  a 
lean  Gothic  mass  on  the  right,  Exeter  solid  and 
square  on  the  left.  On  the  other  side  was  the  dark 
entrance  to  Holywell,  which  always  reminded  him 
of  a  cave,  the  tipsy  lines  of  the  Octagon  bookshop, 
and  immediately  in  front  the  long  row  of  stone 
emperors'  heads,  guarding  the  approach  to  the 
Sheldonian. 

Ray  grew  exceedingly  attached  to  these  emperors. 
There  were  thirteen  of  them,  and  when  there  was 
any  particular  excitement  in  Oxford,  such  as  on 


1 86  PATCHWORK 

Armistice  night  or  the  Fifth  of  November,  they 
woke  to  a  transitory  and  coloured  life  by  the  ap- 
plication of  splashes  of  red  paint  to  the  nose.  And 
on  one  celebrated  occasion  their  glory  was  renewed 
by  a  series  of  paper  feathers  which  waved  trium- 
phantly in  the  wind  which  swept  up  Broad  Street, 
until  eventually  they  were  washed  away  by  the 
rain.  Ray  thought  they  looked  more  appealing  in 
the  rain  than  at  any  other  time.  All  the  stone 
buildings  were  darkened  by  the  wet,  and  tears 
seemed  to  run  continually  down  the  statues'  cheeks. 
But  they  were  beautiful  too  in  the  snow,  when  each 
of  their  heads  was  suddenly  clothed  with  an  abun- 
dance of  white,  or  in  the  early  morning,  when  the 
sun  stained  their  stone  beards  and  flushed  their 
faces  to  a  faint  radiance. 

But  apart  from  the  view,  he  could  do  a  great 
deal  more  with  these  rooms  than  he  had  been  able 
to  do  at  Balliol.  At  Balliol  he  had  been  forced  to 
compromise  with  modernity.  Here  he  could  ob- 
tain exactly  the  effect  that  always  he  had  desired. 
His  sitting-room  was  long  and  low,  with  an  irregular 
ceiling  and  dark  oak  panels.  Ray  had  the  ceiling 
white-washed,  and  a  thick  green  carpet  was  brought 
in,  and  spread  its  comfortable  length  over  nearly 
the  whole  floor.  He  decided  that  he  would  have 
very  few  pictures,  and  eventually  chose  some  Hol- 
bein etchings,  and  over  the  mantelpiece  some  Diirer 
prints.    He  brought  from  Curzon  Street  three  very 


HOSTILITY  187 

beautiful  plates  of  French  china,  peacock-green, 
which  were  hung  on  the  wall  opposite  the  door; 
and  on  the  piano,  which  occupied  the  corner  near- 
est the  window,  he  placed  an  old  English  bowl  of 
transparent  green  glass,  which  was  always  filled  with 
floating  flowers.  Ray  had  an  inherent  objection  to 
placing  anything  on  the  piano  at  all,  but  this  bowl 
looked  so  beautiful  by  the  window,  where  it 
sparkled  or  glowed  or  was  dimmed  by  every  light 
or  shadow  from  outside,  that  he  could  not  resist  the 
temptation. 

It  was  certainly  an  ideal  room  in  which  to  play 
the  piano.  In  the  morning,  when  Oxford  was  a 
pattern  of  multitudinous  roofs,  woven  into  some 
sort  of  unity  by  the  sun,  he  would  fill  the  room 
with  Bach,  taking  a  delight  in  the  eternal  freshness 
of  his  rhythm,  trying  to  get  every  note  and  every 
phrase  as  clear  as  the  sunbeams  which  slanted  in 
through  the  open  windows.  Or  at  five  o'clock,  on 
damp  November  evenings,  he  would  play  Couperin 
and  old  French  tunes,  with  their  absurd  stateliness 
and  their  pleading  little  refrains,  which  seemed  to 
be  ushered  in  so  gracefully  to  this  room  of  stain 
and  shadow.  But  in  the  evening  there  was  nearly 
always  Chopin — brilliant  Chopin  for  wild  nights, 
mazurkas,  preludes,  waltzes,  and  now  and  again  a 
nocturne,  exquisitely  played  and  seeming  every  time 
to  renew  his  love  of  living  whrle  there  was  yet 
time. 


1 88  PATCHWORK 

So  enchanted  was  Ray  with  this  room  that  for 
the  first  two  days  of  term  he  hardly  ventured  out 
at  all.  However,  on  the  Saturday  afternoon  he  was 
so  besieged  with  visitors  that  he  decided  to  go  round 
to  see  Tarn  Edwardes,  with  whom  he  was  dining  on 
the  morrow.  He  felt  suddenly  and  unaccountably 
bored.  Now  that  he  had  already  done  so  much,  he 
wondered  if  there  was  much  left  to  do,  unless  he 
chose  to  concentrate  on  the  Union,  or  endeavoured 
to  get  a  Blue,  the  first  of  which  was  boring,  and  the 
second  probably  totally  impossible.  The  his  was 
now  in  the  pale  but  capable  hands  of  Bagshot,  The 
Oxford  Mercury  was  an  established  institution,  he 
had  ensured  his  reputation  as  a  pianist,  the  Star 
Club  was  almost  too  successful,  and  an  hour's  work 
a  day  seemed  sufficient  to  pull  him  through  his 
exams. 

Tarn  was  a  remarkable  youth.  Endowed  with  a 
great  deal  of  money  and  a  prepossessing  appear- 
ance, his  lot  had  been  cast  in  Pembroke,  of  which 
college  he  was  a  scholar.  He  could  not  be  said  to 
have  any  particular  affection  for  his  college,  and  was 
far  more  at  home  with  the  denizens  of  Christ 
Church  and  Balliol.  He  had  chosen  out  Ray  as 
one  of  the  indispensable  celebrities  without  whom 
his  dinner-parties  would  be  incomplete;  and  Ray  had 
responded  favourably  to  his  advances  because,  apart 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Blue  (and  Ray  was  at 
that  time  "collecting"  blues),  he  liked  Tarn  for 


HOSTILITY  189 

himself.  He  liked  him  because  he  was  witty,  and 
because  he  appreciated  wit,  and  because  he  had  a 
great  knowledge  of  the  world  which  was  conspicu- 
ously absent  in  the  average  undergraduate. 

"Well,  Ray,"  said  Tarn,  the  afternoqn  before  the 
dinner-party,  "they're  massing  their  forces." 

"Who  are  massing  what  forces  against  whom? 
Is  that  grammatical?  Anyway,  what  do  you 
mean?" 

Tarn  gave  a  little  cynical  laugh,  which  was  one  of 
his  chief  attributes.  He  looked  at  Ray  from  under 
his  eyelashes — a  remarkable  feat,  considering  he 
was  much  the  taller  of  the  two. 

"Oh,  Queen's  and  Magdalen,  and  Univ.,  and 
funny  places  like  that." 

"Yes,  but  what  are  they  doing?" 

"Oh,  they're  just  hating  you,  that's  all." 

Ray  laughed.  "Really?  I  don't  think  that's 
very  exciting." 

"Blase  child!  It  is  rather  exciting,  though. 
They're  getting  out  a  paper  entirely  about  you  in 
a  day  or  two." 

Ray  looked  up  from  the  cigarette  he  was  light- 
ing. "Good  Lord!  A  paper?  What  on  earth's 
going  to  be  in  it?" 

Tarn  smiled  again.  "Oh,  I  don't  know.  A  sort 
of  general  exposure,  I  suppose." 

"My  dear  Tarn,  as  if  there  was  anything  to  ex- 
pose." 


i9o  PATCHWORK 

Tarn  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Perhaps  not,  but 
you  know  what  these  creatures  are." 

Ray  rather  disconsolately  sat  down  on  the  sofa. 

"I  shouldn't  worry  if  I  were  you,"  said  Tarn. 
"After  all,  it's  only  jealousy." 

"But  I  really  don't  see  what  they've  got  to  be 
jealous  of." 

"Oh,  Ray!"  Tarn  looked  at  him.  "Modesty 
has  its  limits." 

"So  has  jealousy,  I  imagine." 

"Not  this  sort  of  jealousy.  I  had  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  conspiracy  in  here  this  morning. 
Berry,  of  Queen's.  He  was  simply  ranting  against 
you.     D'yau  know  him?" 

"No — who  is  he?" 

Tarn  lay  back  on  the  sofa  and  put  his  feet  on  the 
mantelpiece. 

"He's  rather  an  important  person,  as  a  matter 
of  fact.     Pre-war,  you  know." 

"Oh,  one  of  the  monoliths?" 

Tarn  nodded.  "Quite.  Fearfully  monolithic. 
He's  a  Blue,  and  he's  at  Queen's,  and  as  he's  in- 
tensely religious  he  thinks  you're  shallow,  and  de- 
cadent, and  he  dislikes  your  habit  of  wearing  suede 
shoes  such  as  those  rather  charming  ones  you've 
got  on  now.     By  the  way,  where  d'you  get  them?" 

"Never  mind  where  I  get  them,"  returned 
Ray.  "Tell  me  something  else  about  this  Berry 
person." 


HOSTILITY  191 

"I  don't  know  whether  there's  anything  more  to 
tell.    He's  merely  one  of  many." 

"Tarn,  if  you  go  on  like  this,  I  shall  leave  Oxford 
to-morrow  and  set  up  a  hat  shop  in  Jermyn  Street." 

He  wondered  how  far  Tarn  was  right.  He  had 
been  so  busy,  so  self-centred  in  his  career  through 
Oxford,  that  he  had  not  had  time  to  notice  how 
other  people  were  regarding  him.  He  had  not  real- 
ised that  the  undergraduate  is  the  most  critical 
audience  in  the  world,  and  now  he  came  to  think 
it  over  it  seemed  rather  remarkable  that,  playing  so 
many  parts  as  he  had  done,  and  playing  them  so 
publicly,  he  had  not  incurred  a  great  deal  more 
hostility  than  had  actually  been  shown. 

"May  I  meet  this  brute?"  he  said,  looking  up 
from  his  reflections. 

"Berry?     I  suppose  I  could  manage  it." 

"Well,  can't  you  ask  him  to  dine  to-morrow?" 

"My  dear  Ray,  I've  already  disorganised  my 
dinner  once  for  you.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  but  you  might  do  it  again.  I'll  do  the 
same  for  you.  I  do  most  awfully  want  to  see  what 
he's  like.  What's  so  ridiculous  about  the  whole 
thing  is  that  he's  never  met  me.  Nobody  likes  me 
who  hasn't  met  me,  and  nearly  everybody  does  who 
has.  Sorry,  but  it's  true.  And  you've  got  to  ask 
him." 

"Very  well.     I'll  see  what  I  can  do." 

Ray  went  away  from  Tarn's  rooms  considerably 


1 92  PATCHWORK 

looking  forward  to  to-morrow's  dinner.  When  the 
time  came  he  was  not  at  all  decided  what  part  he 
should  play.  Should  he  dress  extremely  conven- 
tionally, and  talk  like  a  cadet?  He  cursed  himself 
for  this  idea  as  soon  as  it  crossed  his  mind.  Such 
a  course  would  mean  capitulating  to  the  enemy. 
Besides,  it  would  be  a  renunciation  of  all  he  con- 
sidered most  important.  Apart  from  the  fact  that 
he  doubted  whether,  even  if  he  tried,  he  would  be 
able  to  talk  like  a  cadet,  far  less  look  like  one,  his 
whole  life  at  Oxford  had,  up  to  the  present,  been 
a  fight  to  get  away  from  all  these  false  convention- 
alities, the  mock  censoriousness  and  the  intolerance 
which  had  sprung  up  in  the  wake  of  war.  An  un- 
dergraduate— a  real  undergraduate — should  be  a 
delightful,  inconsequent,  brilliant  individual — not 
a  crabbed  old  man,  as  Berry  and  his  associates  ap- 
peared to  be.  Style!  When  would  these  people 
realise  the  importance  of  style? 

And  so  he  decided  that  he  would  exaggerate  every 
characteristic  which  he  had  already  displayed.  He 
would  show  them  that  he,  at  any  rate,  wasn't  going 
to  sit  down  like  a  lamb  and  be  told  what  to  do. 
He  therefore  performed  his  toilet  with  particular 
care.  A  soft  shirt,  a  velvet  dinner  jacket,  and  a 
white  rose.  He  didn't  care  if  he  was  debagged  or 
de-anythinged.  After  all,  he  would  go  down  with 
his  bags  flying. 

Ray  on  his  arrival  at  the  Grid  created  something 


HOSTILITY  193 

of  a  sensation.  However,  nobody  at  first  showed 
any  signs  of  hostility.  Nearly  everybody  at  the 
Grid  liked  him,  and  many  an  evening  had  he  spent 
there,  in  front  of  the  fire,  laying  down  the  law  on 
art,  on  politics,  or  on  life  in  general,  to  an  amused 
circle  of  acquaintances. 

But  as  soon  as  he  saw  Tarn  he  realised  that  there 
were  rocks  ahead.  Tarn  was  talking  to  a  tall 
young  man  with  a  well-made  body  in  a  badly  made 
dinner  jacket.  That  must  be  Berry.  He  would 
have  been  rather  good-looking  if  his  eyes  had  not 
been  so  small  and  his  face  had  not  been  stamped 
with  that  indescribable  expression  of  intolerance 
which  seems  to  overtake  nonconformist  clergymen 
in  middle  age. 

Ray  swept  up  in  his  best  manner.  "Good  even- 
ing, Tarn.     I'm  so  sorry  to  be  late." 

Tarn  had  a  great  deal  of  difficulty  to  prevent 
himself  laughing  when  he  saw  Ray's  carefully  cal- 
culated appearance,  and  its  effect  on  Berry. 

"That's  all  right,"  he  said.    "What'll  you  drink?" 

"Oh,  a  sherry  and  bitters,  thanks."  He  felt  that 
in  order  to  make  the  impression  complete,  he  ought 
to  have  ordered  a  creme  de  menthe.  Tarn  ordered 
it. 

"I  forget  if  you  know  Berry  of  Queen's?  Mr. 
Raymond  Sheldon,  Balliol." 

Ray  bowed  distantly.  He  was  not  yet  sure 
whether  to  be  charming  or  offensive. 


i94  PATCHWORK 

They  went  up  to  dinner.  Tarn  had  ordered  a 
private  room,  as  there  were  now  eight  of  them. 
Tarn,  Ray,  Berry,  Tom  Booth  of  Magdalen,  Steele, 
who  had  been  ordered  by  Ray  to  subdue  himself, 
Arden  the  composer  of  comic  songs,  Marvin,  an- 
other Blue  and  a  staunch  supporter  of  Ray,  and 
Tommy  Quill,  who  never  went  to  a  dinner-party 
with  any  other  desire  than  to  dine. 

Ray  felt  that,  above  all,  he  must  sparkle  to- 
night. He  had  been  placed  next  to  Berry.  How- 
ever, it  was  not  till  the  entree  had  been  disposed  of, 
that  he  managed  to  draw  Berry's  fire. 

"I  thought  Waring  was  going  to  be  here  to- 
night?" said  Berry  to  Tarn. 

"No,  he  couldn't  come." 

"Oh,  I'm  so  glad,"  said  Ray. 

"And  why?"  interrupted  Berry. 

Ray  smiled  at  him.  "Because  he  either  doesn't 
talk  at  all,  which  is  dreadful,  or  tells  one  all  the 
stories  which  I  have  at  last  been  able  to  stop  Steele 
telling,  which  is  worse.  There's  that  story  of  the 
white  mice  which  he  was  supposed  to  put  in  Steele's 
bed.  .  .  ." 

Steele  roared  with  laughter.  "Oh  Lord,  the 
white  mice." 

"What  was  it?"  asked  Berry. 

"Whatever  else  it  was,"  interrupted  Ray,  "it  was 
most  indelicate." 

"Why?" 


HOSTILITY  195 

"Because  there's  always  one  more  mouse  every 
time  the  story  is  told.  I  had  no  idea  that  insects 
increased  so  rapidly." 

"Mice  don't  happen  to  be  insects,  to  my  knowl- 
edge." Berry  looked  round  the  table  with  a 
superior  smile. 

Ray  sipped  some  champagne.  "The  genus  seems 
to  me  immaterial.  At  any  rate,  they  aren't  things 
one  discusses  in  polite  society." 

The  duel  now  resolved  itself  into  one  between 
Ray  and  Berry  alone. 

"Oh,  I  suppose,  then,  you've  moved  in  different 
circles  to  the  rest  of  us?" 

"I  never  move  in  circles  at  all,"  replied  Ray 
placidly.    "I  always  go  straight  on." 

"I  forgot  you  were  a  genius,"  sneered  Berry. 

"I  know;  it  was  very  careless  of  you." 

Tarn  interrupted  the  conversation,  which  looked 
as  if  it  might  rapidly  resolve  into  a  free  fight. 

"Been  making  any  more  speeches  on  divorce 
lately?"  he  said  to  Berry.  He  hoped  his  question 
might  give  Ray  a  hint  to  be  quiet,  but  it  had  pre- 
cisely the  opposite  effect. 

"Divorce?"  asked  Ray  innocently. 

"One  or  two,"  replied  Berry  pompously,  disre- 
garding Ray's  interruption.  As  a  staunch  Chris- 
tian he  regarded  marriage  as  eternally  binding  under 
any  conditions. 

"Don't  you  believe  in  divorce?"  Ray  looked  at 


196  PATCHWORK 

him  with  the  air  of  a  schoolboy  asking  a  master 
the  answer  to  a  geometrical  problem. 

"No,  I  do  not."  Berry  leant  back  and  gazed 
at  the  ceiling,  as  though  his  answer  closed  the 
question. 

"I  do,"  said  Ray,  ignoring  Tarn's  signal  to  be 
quiet. 

"Oh,  you're  a  disciple  of  free  love,  I  suppose?" 

"Certainly  not.     Free  love  is  far  too  expensive." 

Tarn  could  not  help  laughing,  and  everybody  ex- 
cept Berry  giggled  hopelessly. 

"The  reason  I  believe  in  easier  divorce,"  added 
Ray,  "is  because  I  don't  believe  in  state  control  of 
emotion." 

Berry  looked  at  him  with  a  superior  smile. 
"Does  that  mean  anything?" 

"What?     The  state  control  or  the  emotion?" 

Berry  did  not  reply.  Ray  began  to  be  seriously 
annoyed.  He  leant  forward,  and  the  atmosphere 
grew  tense.  He  knew  very  little  about  divorce,  but 
he  was  determined  to  teach  this  man  a  lesson. 

"Look  here,"  he  said. 

"Well?" 

"Supposing,  in  a  moment  of  aberration,  you  mar- 
ried a  wife.  .  .  ." 

"Well?" 

"And  that  six  months  after  you  married  her  she 
took  to  drink.  .  .  ." 


HOSTILITY  197 

Everybody  roared  with  laughter.  For  twopence 
Berry  would  have  tried  to  knock  Ray  down,  but  he 
saw  that  the  laugh  was  against  him,  and  he  man- 
aged to  put  on  a  feeble  smile. 

"Well?"  he  said  again. 

"Do  you  realise  that  you  would  be  unable  to 
divorce  her?" 

"Most  certainly." 

"And  yet  you  don't  believe  in  divorce:  for 
drunkenness,  for  instance?" 

"Certainly  not." 

"Do  tell  me  why."  Ray  leant  back  in  his  chair. 
He  was  beginning  thoroughly  to  enjoy  himself,  and 
so  was  the  rest  of  the  table.  Tarn  gave  up  all 
hope  of  conciliation,  and  merely  told  the  waiter  to 
shut  the  window  and  to  bring  coffee  and  cigars. 
During  this  procedure  the  discussion  for  a  moment 
lapsed,  and  Ray  looked  round  the  table  to  gain  en- 
couragement. Steele  winked  at  him,  Tarn  shook 
his  head,  Tommy  Quill  waved  his  wineglass,  and  the 
rest  merely  giggled. 

Berry,  too,  was  on  his  mettle.  Divorce  was  his 
favourite  subject.  Ray  was  his  pet  antipathy. 
He  was  not  going  to  miss  such  an  opportunity. 

He  lit  his  cigar  and  started  to  smoke  it  with  the 
band  on. 

"Is  it  possible  for  you  to  be  serious  for  two 
minutes?"  he  said. 


198  PATCHWORK 

"Much  longer  than  that." 

"Oh."  He  paused.  "Then  may  I  ask  you  if 
you  believe  in  the  Bible?" 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'believe  in  the  Bible'? 
I  believe  that  the  Bible  exists,  if  that's  what  you 
mean." 

"I  do  not.  Do  you  believe  in  the  teachings  of 
the  Bible?" 

"Oh,  some  of  them.  I  don't  think,  for  instance, 
that  I  shall  go  to  hell  if  I  call  my  brother  a  fool, 
partly  because  I  haven't  got  a  brother,  and  partly 
because.  .  .  ." 

"Do  you  believe  in  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  as 
regards  divorce?"  boomed  Berry. 

"What  is  it?" 

Berry  turned  round  triumphantly.  "I  really 
can't  argue  with  a  chap  who  doesn't  know  what  he's 
talking  about." 

"/  wasn't  talking  about  the  Bible,"  said  Ray. 

Berry  scowled.  "The  teaching  of  the  Bible  with 
regard  to  divorce  is  that  'those  whom  God  hath 
joined  let  no  man  put  asunder.'  " 

"What  a  delightful  sentence!" 

Berry  snorted. 

"But  what  on  earth  it's  got  to  do  with  divorce  I 
don't  know.  Suppose  you  married,  and  two  days 
afterwards  your  wife,  who  previous  to  marriage  had 
shown  no  signs  of  any  but  a  healthy  mind  in  a 
healthy  body,  became  totally  insane.  .  .  ." 


HOSTILITY  199 

The  table  was  a  pandemonium  of  hysterical 
laughter.  Ray  had  to  shout  to  make  himself  heard. 
Steele  battered  the  table  with  his  fists.  Tommy 
Quill  took  the  opportunity  of  making  great  inroads 
on  the  port.  It  was  some  moments  before  order 
was  restored. 

"Ray,  for  God's  sake,  talk  about  something  else," 
said  Tarn. 

"Very  well.  But  I  didn't  start  this  divorce  busi- 
ness." 

Tommy  Quill,  well  primed  with  port,  threw  his 
frail  weight  into  the  breach. 

"Does  everybody  know  I've  got  a  new  volume  of 
poems  coming  out  in  two  days?"  he  fluted. 

"What  are  they  called?" 

"  'Fauns  and  Flutes.'  " 

"Oh,  Tommy,  how  prolific  you  are!"  said  Ray. 
"Are  they  fearfully  morbid?" 

"No;  marvellously  energetic  and  dynamic." 

"I'm  so  glad.  I  hate  whining  poems.  In  the 
opinion  of  some  people,  genius  to-day  is  simply  an 
infinity  capacity  for  having  pains." 

Tommy  smiled  languidly.  "I  shall  remember 
that.     It  applies  so  delightfully  to  'Wheels.'  " 

"Yes,  doesn't  it?"  Steele  now  joined  in.  He 
hated  "Wheels,"  and  leant  forward  eagerly.  "Did 
you  see  what  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette  said  about 
'Wheels'?" 

"No." 


200  PATCHWORK 

"  'Conceived  in  morbid  eccentricity  and  executed 
in  fierte,  factitious  gloom.'  " 

"Are  you  talking  about  Charles  I?"  The  re- 
mark, needless  to  say,  came  from  Ray. 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean?" 

"Well,  I  imagine  he  was  conceived  in  morbid  ec- 
centricity, and  he  was  certainly  executed  in  fierce, 
factitious  gloom." 

"Ray,  you  are  becoming  intolerably  decadent." 

"My  dear  Tommy,  from  you!"  Ray  suddenly 
became  comparatively  earnest.  This  word  "de- 
cadent" was  one  which  was  used  a  great  deal  too 
much.  Berry  and  his  associates  had  applied  it  to 
him.  It  was  time  he  showed  them  that  if  he  was 
a  decadent  he  was  any  rate  an  energetic  one. 

"What  is  a  decadent?"  he  leant  forward,  and 
from  the  eagerness  of  his  expression,  his  flushed 
cheeks,  his  general  appearance  of  vitality,  he  cer- 
tainly did  not  look  at  all  decadent  himself. 

"My  dear  Ray,  I  never  define." 

"No,  and  it's  about  time  you  did.  I'm  sick  of 
all  this  talk  about  decadence  from  people  who 
simply  don't  know  what  they're  talking  about." 
He  glanced  at  Berry. 

"It  is  rather  an  important  thing,  you  know,  isn't 
it?"  agreed  Tommy. 

"It  certainly  is.  You're  called  a  decadent  if 
your  wallpaper  is  brown,  or  if  it's  green  or  blue  or 
any  other  colour  under  the  sun.     You're  called  a 


HOSTILITY  201 

decadent  if  you  wear  flowers,  instead  of  treading  on 
them,  or  if  you  happen  to  have  on  a  decently  fitting 
coat,  or  if  you  wear  coloured  shirts.  Good  Lord, 
Oxford  ought  to  be  a  place  where  you  can  wear  any 
damned  thing  you  like  and  do  any  damned  thing 
you  like  too.  Some  people  seem  to  imagine  we're 
still  in  the  army.  It  makes  me  sick."  He  gulped 
some  port  indignantly. 

"And  decadence?"  delicately  suggested  Quill. 

Ray  laughed.  "Oh,  decadence  is  simply  un- 
necessary distortion." 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"Well,  of  course  you  can't  prove  definitions  like 
that,  but  still  .  .  .  when  sincerity  flies  out  of  the 
door,  decadence  come  in  at  the  window.  Take  the 
case  of  Beardsley.  I  love  Beardsley,  but  he  is  ap- 
pallingly decadent.  As  soon  as  an  artist  like  Beards- 
ley starts,  out  of  mere  perversion,  to  trace  strange 
designs  over  the  chest  of  Salome,  I  feel  that  his 
art  is  degenerating  into  mere  cleverness,  that  he  is 
distorting  without  sincerity — and  consequently  that 
he's  decadent." 

Tommy  in  his  turn  leant  forward.  "But  when 
you  say  distortion,"  he  quavered,  "I  don't  know 
quite  what  you  mean.     In  art,  for  instance?" 

"Well,  I  don't  think  it's  the  degree  of  distortion 
that  matters — it's  just  the  way  it's  done.  I 
wouldn't  say,  for  example,  that  you  could  draw  a 
woman  six  feet  high,  but  that  it's  decadent  to  draw 


202  PATCHWORK 

one  ten  feet  high.  And  I  wouldn't  say,  either, 
that  you  can  draw  a  man  with  one  nose,  but  must 
never  give  him  two." 

Berry  guffawed  loudly.  "Two  noses — Good 
God!"  He  blushed  at  his  sudden  involuntary  in- 
vocation of  the  deity. 

"Certainly,"  said  Ray  placidly.  "  'Good  God,' 
as  you  say.  If  God  gives  you  one  nose,  I  imagine 
that  He  can  also  give  you  two.  Let  those  noses 
which  God  has  joined  not  be  put  asunder,  or  what- 
ever that  delightful  sentence  was  that  you  quoted," 
he  added  maliciously.  "But  seriously — a  nose 
shouldn't  be,  to  the  artist — to  the  artist,  mind  you 
— any  more  than  a  line,  coloured  bright  or  plain  ac- 
cording to  taste.  If  you  object  to  an  extra  nose, 
then  on  the  same  principle  you  must  object  to  a 
hump,  which  means  that  you  must  dislike  Velas- 
quez, whom  I  have  never  yet  heard  called  decadent. 
Don't  you  see  what  I  mean?" 

"Do  you  see  what  you  mean  yourself?"  said 
Berry  contemptuously. 

"Not  quite,"  returned  Ray,  smiling,  "but  I  look 
forward  to  that  pleasure  in  years  to  come.  In  any 
case,  I'm  sure  the  hump  argument  is  good." 

"But  I  don't  see  what  it's  got  to  do  with  two 
noses,"  returned  Quill.  He  pronounced  the  word 
"nosers." 

"I  should  have  thought  the  connection  was  ob- 


HOSTILITY  203 

vious.  After  all,  a  hump  is  merely  an  extra  nose 
in  the  back,  and  the  fact  that  it's  on  the  wrong 
side  seems  to  me  to  increase  the  perversity,  if  you 
like  to  call  it  such,  of  the  wearer." 

"Ray,  you're  hopeless,"  said  Tam. 

"That's  the  last  adjective  which  anybody  should 
apply  to  me,"  he  returned.  "I've  got  hope  of 
everybody" — again  he  glanced  at  Berry.  "I'm 
merely  trying  to  be  serious,  by  request.  The  basis 
of  the  whole  thing,  of  course,  is  rhythm.  Take 
music.  Rhythm  adapts  itself,  or  should  adapt  it- 
self, to  the  temper  of  the  artist  as  he  creates,  and 
whatever  that  temper  or  mood  may  be,  it's  for  the 
artist  to  find  the  rhythm  which  fits.  As  soon  as  he 
fails  to  find  it,  as  soon  as  he  becomes  just  mechan- 
ical, insincere,  distorted — what  you  like — well,  he 
becomes  decadent.  Suppose  his  mood — it's  a  bloody 
word,  but  it's  useful — is  one  of  passionate  rage 
(like  mine  at  this  moment),"  he  added  tranquilly. 
"The  decadent  musician,  and  especially  the  mod- 
ern decadent,  would  go  to  the  piano,  think  of  the 
word  rage,  put  on  the  loud  pedal,  and  produce 
something  which  was  harsh  and  broken,  photo- 
graphically angry,  if  you  like,  but  not  art.  Com- 
pare that  with  Chopin — the  Revolutionary  Etude, 
for  instance.  Here,  he  was  simply  passionately  in- 
dignant, and  the  indignation  that  he  felt  surged 
into  something  definitely  rhythmical,  and  he  wrote 


2o4  PATCHWORK 

a  prelude  which  is  terrifyingly  realistic,  and  yet 
which  you  can  play  in  absolute  three-four  time, 
with  a  metronome.  .  .  ." 

He  expanded  the  idea,  and  talked  with  a  fascina- 
tion and  brilliance  which  he  could  only  achieve 
when  he  knew  that  there  was  an  element  of  hostil- 
ity in  his  audience.  He  felt  the  eyes  of  Berry 
fixed  on  him  in  stultified  indignation,  and  they 
spurred  him  on  to  still  greater  efforts.  He  became 
flamboyant,  exaggerated,  daring.  He  showed  off. 
He  had  a  very  wide  knowledge  of  his  subject — and 
it  was  a  vast  enough  subject  too.  Ray,  as  he  talked, 
seemed  to  see  in  the  distance  the  ruins  of  Greece, 
looming  across  great  vistas  scattered  with  the  bones 
of  those  who  at  various  times  in  history  had  fought 
over  the  relations  of  art  and  truth,  art  and  morality, 
art  and  life.  And  nearer,  the  ground  on  which  he 
stood  seemed  to  be  covered  wtih  the  footprints  of 
thousands,  so  that  it  was  hard  to  pick  out  a  clear 
track  for  himself.  There  was  Ruskin — clear,  heavy 
footprints,  going  along  straight  and  ponderous,  and 
ending  in  a  swamp.  There  was  Croce,  who  had 
smaller  feet,  that  left  more  delicate  impressions,  and 
reached  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see.  There  was 
Max  Nordau,  who  drew  one  foot  after  another, 
raising  a  lot  of  sand,  and  finally  sinking  into  the 
earth.  There  was  Tolstoy,  who  turned  in  his  feet, 
and  at  last  vanished  in  a  cloud  of  virtuous  indig- 
nation;  there  was  Marinetti,  who  crawled  on  his 


HOSTILITY  205 

stomach.  What  an  endless  procession!  They  all 
seemed  to  walk  before  him,  and  he  drew  from 
them  for  a  moment  illustrations  of  what  he  meant, 
and  then  they  faded  away  and  were  forgotten.  It 
was  a  wonderful  improvisation. 

When  he  finished,  there  was  a  pause.  Berry 
broke  it,  by  getting  up. 

"Good-bye,  Edwardes,"  he  said  to  Tarn.  "And 
thank  you  for  a  very  entertaining  evening." 

"Good-bye." 

Berry  went  out  of  the  room  in  silence.  As  soon 
as  he  had  gone,  everybody  began  to  laugh. 

"Damn  you,  Ray,"  said  Tarn. 

"Why?" 

"Berry  looked  absolutely  murderous." 

"I  don't  care.  And  anyway,  if  he  wants  to 
murder  any  one,  he'll  murder  me,  not  you." 

"You  were  rather  priceless,  you  know." 

Ray  laughed.  "He's  such  an  insufferable  fool, 
I  really  couldn't  resist  pulling  his  leg." 

The  conversation  languished.  Ray  suddenly 
felt  very  tired.  He  wondered  what  Berry  would 
put  in  this  paper  he  was  bringing  out.  Some- 
thing quite  appalling,  probably.  Still,  it  wasn't  his 
fault.  He  had  meant  what  he  had  said,  or  most 
of  it — and  in  any  case  it  had  been  a  wonderful 
dinner. 

He  thanked  Tarn  effusively  as  they  said  good- 
night.    "It  really  was  marvellous,"  he  said. 


2o6  PATCHWORK 

"You  were,  you  mean,"  laughed  Tarn. 

"Oh,  well,  it's  the  same  thing." 

When  he  got  back  to  his  rooms  he  felt  an 
overwhelming  desire  for  fresh,  clean  things — a 
positive  revulsion  against  anything  even  vaguely 
savouring  of  preciousness. 

He  opened  the  windows  wide,  and  threw  out 
the  white  rose  into  the  dark  street.  It  had  served 
its  purpose.  Then  he  tore  off  his  clothes,  had  a 
bath,  and  practised  Bach  till  Mrs.  Griffiths  came 
in  with  a  candle,  fluttering  and  indignant,  and  told 
him  that  he  would  wake  the  whole  house. 


CHAPTER  IV 

BENEDICITE 

TAM  had  been  right.  Two  days  later  the 
paper  appeared.  It  was  called  The  Babe, 
and  while  it  was  intended  to  be  a  skit  on  Oxford 
celebrities  in  general,  it  devoted  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  its  space  to  Ray.  It  started  with  a  review 
of  an  imaginary  book,  entitled  "How  we  discovered 
Oxford,"  by  Messrs.  Shame  and  Reldon — a  rather 
clumsy  transposition  of  "Raymond  Sheldon."  It 
then  went  on  to  "Specimens  of  Oxford  Oratory": 

"They  think  in  vicious  circles,  but  we  think  in 
cubes." — Mr.  Raymond  Sheldon. 

"There  is  nothing  so  essentially  feminine  as 
woman." — Mr.  R.  F.  Whitely. 

"We  have  lived  too  long  in  the  red  glare  of  war. 

Let  us  paper  the  Union  in  Blue."  Mr.  Tommy 
Quill  in  his  latest  book  of  verse. 

"I   declare  this  club  open." — Mr.  R.  F.  Berry. 

The  whole  of  page  three  was  occupied  by  a 
malicious  cartoon  of  Ray,  with  a  turned-up  nose  and 
a  made-up  bow,  playing  the  piano  in  Balliol  Hall  to 
an  adoring  crowd  of  women  students  and  coal-black 
negroes.     Pages  four  and  five  gave  him  a  brief 

207 


208  PATCHWORK 

respite,  but  page  six  was  entitled  "Aphorisms  by  the 
brightest  particular  Ray  in  the  Star  Club,"  and  was 
a  feeble  attempt  to  reproduce  some  of  his  epigrams. 
Ray  noticed  with  amusement  that  three  of  them  had 
reference  to  divorce. 

He  strolled  into  J.  C.  R.  on  the  morning  of  the 
paper's  appearance,  and  was  greeted  with  a 
boisterous  welcome. 

"Fame  at  last,  Ray,"  said  Arden. 

"Thanks.  I'd  rather  you  didn't  slap  me  on 
the  back.  And  if  this  is  fame  I'd  prefer  to  have  the 
other  thing." 

"Oh  no,  you  wouldn't.  You  know  you  really 
like  it." 

Ray  laughed.  He  certainly  did  not  particularly 
mind  it  at  present.  It  was  foolish,  but  it  was  rather 
amusing. 

However,  when  three  days  later  another  paper 
came  out  on  the  game  lines,  entitled  The  Moon,  and 
when  this  was  followed  a  week  after  by  "The  Son — 
the  only  paper  in  Oxford  which  is  not  edited  by 
Mr.  Raymond  Sheldon,"  he  began  to  feel  that 
things  had  gone  a  little  too  far. 

"Who's  doing  all  this?"  he  asked  Steele. 

Steele  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Oh,  idiots  like 
Berry  of  Queen's  and  Waring  of  Magdalen.  It's 
only  jealousy;  I  shouldn't  take  any  notice  of  it  if 
I  were  you." 

"That's  all  very  well,  but  when  you're  offered 


BENEDICITE  209 

biographies  of  yourself  at  every  street  corner  it's 
rather  hard  not  to  take  any  notice." 

He  flung  The  Moon  into  the  waste-paper  basket, 
and  went  to  the  window.  It  was  so  glorious  a 
morning,  with  all  the  roofs  so  dazzling  in  the  frost, 
that  it  seemed  absurd  to  worry  about  a  little  hostility 
like  this.  But  he  was  principally  worried  because 
he  conceived  the  attacks  as  delivered  not  on  himself 
but  on  the  attitude  which  he  had  consistently 
adopted,  the  attitude  of  Oxford  before  the  war. 
And  if  the  fact  that  he  had  endeavoured  to  recapture 
this  pose  was  to  be  the  cause  of  so  much  discussion, 
if  he  was  to  be  criticised  for  everything  he  did  as 
if  he  were  a  public  schoolboy,  it  was  about  time  to 
despair  of  Oxford  and  everything  for  which  Oxford 
seemed  to  stand. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  "the  wretched  thing  about 
all  these  papers  is  that  they're  anonymous." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  publish  one  yourself  in 
reply?" 

Ray  looked  at  him  indignantly.  "I  should  have 
thought  you  knew  me  better  than  to  suggest  that 
sort  of  thing." 

Steele  flushed.     "How  do  you  mean?" 

"Well — really — I  mean,  it  isn't  a  particularly 
noble  thing  to  do,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  to  publish  a 
lot  of  piffle  about  people  you've  probably  never 
met,  and  then  to  be  afraid  of  putting  your  name  to 
it.     I've  never  written  anything  I  haven't  signed." 


210  PATCHWORK 

He  stared  out  of  the  window,  and  whistled. 
He  had  intended  to  play  the  piano  that  morning, 
but  somehow  he  did  not  feel  able  to  do  anything. 
"I  don't  really  care,  though.  I  shall  go  on  as  I 
have  done." 

Steele  stood  up  and  then  stood  down  again. 
He  took  the  cushion  from  his  armchair  and  then 
put  it  back;  he  poked  the  fire,  lit  a  cigarette, 
threw  it  away,  lit  a  pipe,  let  it  go  out,  and  said, 
"Why?" 

Ray  turned  round.     "Why  what?" 

"Why  do  you  want  to  go  on  doing  all  these 
things?" 

Ray  looked  at  him  in  astonishment.  "Well, 
you've  not  exactly  discouraged  me  yourself  up  to  the 
present." 

"No,  I  know,  and  I'm  beginning  to  wonder  if  I 
ought  to  have  done.  I  suppose  it  was  all  right  to 
do  the  papers,  and  I  feel  the  Star  Club  was  a  good 
move,  but  then — you've  done  so  much  else  besides. 
You've  played  the  paino,  you've  founded  all  sorts 
of  weird  societies,  you're  always  out  to  every  meal, 
you  seem  to  know  everybody  and  everything  in  the 
place,  you — oh,  I  don't  know,  but  hadn't  you  better 
chuck  some  of  it?  I  know  you  don't  do  The  I  sis 
any  more,  and  the  Mercury's  no  bother,  but  then — 
anyway  you  never  seem  to  rest.  You  live  about 
ten  lives  at  once.  .  .  ." 

"And  I  wish  I  could  live  ten  thousand,"  Ray 


BENEDICITE  211 

burst  out.  "Oh,  I  know  it's  probably  wrong  and 
idiotic,  but  I  can't  help  it.  I  like  living  and  I  like 
life.  I  suppose  that  nowadays  it's  the  fashion  to 
dislike  life,  but  I  don't,  I  frankly  like  it,  in  the 
most  blatant,  vulgar  way.  I  like  seeing  people.  I 
like  watching  their  faces — seeing  them  crinkle  up 
like  paper  when  I  make  them  laugh,  seeing  them 
grow  weighty  and  heavy  when  I  say  something 
clever.  I  like  watching  a  whole  lot  of  people  sitting 
round  the  fire,  and  talking,  just  talking.  I  love 
talk.  Everything  that  any  one  says  is  a  challenge, 
it's  an  adventure.  It's  like  being  thrown  a  rope,  and 
catching  hold  of  the  end,  and  then  swinging  on  it — 
God  knows  where — but  I  like  swinging.  I  like 
answering  people.  I  like  saying  something  better 
than  they  do,  because  I'm  conceited,  and  I  like  being 
conceited." 

He  went  to  the  fireplace  and  played  with  the 
things  on  the  mantelpiece. 

"I  like  being  alive  and  feeling  all  sorts  of 
queer  beatings  and  excitements  inside.  I  like  my 
own  body.  I  like  it  because  it's  healthy  and 
muscular,  I  like  my  hands  because  they're  clever 
and  clean,  I  like  my  arms  and  my  legs  and  my 
absurd  head.  I  like  them  all  because  they're  funny, 
and  sad,  and — oh,  I  don't  know,  I  like  them.  And 
I  like  giving  them  a  good  time.  I  like  to  let  them 
run  about  in  fields  and  get  the  fresh  air.  I  like 
going  red  in  the  face  with  running,  and  I  like  aching 


212  PATCHWORK 

all  over  after  a  day's  exercise.  I  love  feeling 
healthy.  It's  exciting  just  to  breathe  when  you're 
young  and  healthy.  .  .  .  And  I  like  things,  just 
things.  I  like  to  see  straight  trees  and  big  fat  hills. 
I  want  to  climb  up  the  trees  and  sing,  and  kick  the 
hills  over  and  shout.  I  want  to  slide  down  valleys 
and  jump  in  rivers,  and  bite  things.  I  like  feeling 
things,  because  the  senses  are  beautiful  things,  and 
if  you  use  them  properly  it's  all  right.  I  like 
smelling  flowers,  and  I  like  picking  them  and 
breaking  their  stems  and  squashing  them  together. 
I  like  rushing  about  and  seeing  and  hearing, 
and  singing,  and  being  frightened,  and  being 
glad.  .  .  . 

"And  I  like  myself."  He  paused  for  a  moment, 
and  laughed.  "I  really  have  an  extraordinary  affec- 
tion for  myself.  I  like  myself  because,  when  I  look 
right  inside,  what  I  see  is  good.  It's  good — quite 
frankly.  Inside — right  inside — I'm  an  extraor- 
dinarily nice  person,  because  I'm  kind,  and  I'm  not 
dishonest,  because  I  believe  in  God  and  because  I'm 
capable  of  very  great  love.  When  I  say  love,  I 
mean  all  sorts  of  love.  I  love  just  as  any  other 
animal  does,  and  just  as  any  man  or  woman  on 
earth  does,  if  he's  honest  with  himself.  I  like 
kissing,  and  I  like,  occasionally,  wild  indecency. 
You  needn't  looked  shocked.  You  do  yourself.  If 
you  don't  there's  something  wrong  with  you.  I 
haven't  got  a  dirty  mind,  but  there's  mud  in  it.    If 


BENEDICITE  213 

there  wasn't  there'd  be  no  flowers.  I  like  dirty 
jokes,  now  and  then.  Everybody  does  at  the  right 
time.  And  I  like  loving  people  in  other  ways. 
Non-physical  ways  I  mean.  I  don't  say  they're 
better.  They  probably  are,  because  they're  in- 
finitely more  lasting.  They're  just  different,  that's 
all.  .  .  ." 

He  looked  up  for  a  moment,  caught  his  reflec- 
tion in  the  glass,  and  laughed. 

"Oh  Lord,  isn't  it  funny?  We  praise  Thee, 
O  Lord!  I  like  you,  Steele,  and  I  like  lots  of  other 
people.  I  like  their  noses  and  their  chins,  and 
their  teeth  and  their  hair.  I  like  niggers  and  China- 
men, and  lunatics  and  prostitutes.  I  like  brown 
things  and  red  things,  and  green  things  and  puce 
things.  In  fact,  I'm  damned  hearty.  What  shall 
we  do?" 

He  pulled  Steele  out  of  the  chair  and  stuck  a 
cigar  arbitrarily  between  his  lips. 

"I  think  you'd  better  go  and  have  a  cold  bath." 

"Brilliant  idea.     I  will." 

"No,  don't  be  a   fool.    Come  here  a  minute." 

"Well?" 

"You've  got  a  smut  on  your  nose." 

"Hooray!  I  like  smuts,  and  I  like  noses.  I 
like  .  .  ." 

"If  you  go  on  liking  I  shall  run  away." 

Ray  sighed.  "All  right,  I'll  be  good.  Let's 
both  have  a  vast  whiskey  and  soda." 


2i4  PATCHWORK 

"It's  only  half-past  eleven." 

"Never  mind.  Say  when."  He  poured  out 
the  whiskey  from  a  heavy  decanter  on  the  dark  side- 
board. 

"When.    Thanks.    Here's  your  absurd  health." 

They  sat  down  again. 

"Look  here/'  said  Steele,  "why  don't  you  put 
yourself  above  all  these  papers  and  things  by  getting 
a  recognised  position?" 

"How  do  you  mean?  Besides,  I  have  got  a 
recognised  position." 

"No,  you  haven't.  Everybody  knows  you're 
clever  enough,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  .  .  ." 

Ray  bowed. 

"No,  do  be  quiet  a  minute.  You're  well  enough 
known,  I  realise  that,  but  you  ought  to  get  some- 
thing more  stable." 

"More  stable?" 

"Yes — for  instance,  why  don't  you  become 
President  of  the  Union?" 

"You  say  it  as  though  you  were  asking  me  why 
I  don't  have  another  whiskey  and  soda." 

"Well,  they'd  both  be  equally  easy  for  you." 

"Oh  no,  they  wouldn't." 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  there's  no  more  soda  in  the  syphon." 

"That's  the  spirit." 

"No — I  didn't  mean  that.    I  was  being  obscure. 


BENEDICITE  215 

I  meant  there's  no  more  soda  in  my  syphon. 
There's  no  more  sparkle  left  in  me." 

"Rot." 

"Perhaps  you're  right.  But  I  don't  want  to  be 
tied  down.  If  I  work  for  the  Union  I  ought  to 
lead  a  tedious  sort  of  existence,  and  wear  Norfolk 
jackets,  and  get  up  early,  and  be  nice  to  negroes, 
and  know  who's  head  of  the  river.  Well,  I  might 
possibly  get  as  far  as  the  Norfolk  jacket,  provided 
it  hadn't  got  leather  buttons,  but  I  really  couldn't 
do  the  other  things." 

"There's  not  the  faintest  need.  All  you've  got 
to  do  is  to  talk." 

"But  my  dear  old  thing,  I  never  stop  talking." 

"At  the  Union,  I  mean." 

Ray  made  a  little  grimace.  "All  right,  I'll  think 
it  over.  Have  another  drink?  At  any  rate,  one 
syphon's  still  got  something  in  it." 

That  afternoon  Ray  went  round  to  see  Tommy 
Quill,  the  President  of  the  Union.  He  had  rooms  in 
Beaumont  Street,  rooms  which  constrasted  strangely 
with  his  exotic  nature.  It  was  one  of  his  poses  to 
maintain  that  he  was  entirely  unaffected  by  his 
surroundings,  and  he  therefore  had  made  no  attempt 
to  remove  his  landlady's  antimacassars  or  to  take 
from  the  gilt  clocks  the  glass  cases  which  enclosed 
them  like  swollen  bubbles.  Pictures  by  Gaugin  and 
Goya  hung  side  by  side  with  lithographs  by  Marcus 


216  PATCHWORK 

Stone  and  fly-blown  interiors  of  Methodist  chapels, 
and  the  latest  publications  of  the  Poetry  Bookshop 
were  piled  haphazard  on  tables  of  bamboo  which 
spread  their  speckled  and  shiny  legs  into  the  dusty 
carpet.  The  only  change  which  Tommy  had 
initiated  had  been  with  regard  to  the  wallpaper. 
It  had  been  of  bright  crimson,  and  he  had  written 
a  poem  about  it,  which  started: 

You  have  lived  too  long  with  a  crimson  wall- 
paper. 

Try  for  a  little  while  a  lucid  grey. 

And  he  had  subsequently  put  his  poetry  into 
practice. 

In  this  strange  room  Ray  found  Tommy  sitting 
in  front  of  the  fire,  smoking  a  long  clay  pipe. 

"My  dear  Raymond  .  .  ."  he  fluted,  without 
getting  up. 

Ray  sat  down,  and  after  a  few  moments 
desultory  conversation  he  explained  the  purpose  of 
his  visit. 

"But  of  course,  that's  what  we've  all  been 
wanting  you  to  do  ever  since  you  came,"  said 
Tommy,  with  the  nearest  approach  to  enthusiasm 
which  he  ever  manifested. 

Ray  smiled.  "I  know,  but  somehow  I've  never 
taken  very  much  to  the  idea.  You  see  it  means 
conciliating  public  opinion  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing." 


BENEDICITE  217 

"No,  it  doesn't.    Look  at  me." 

Ray  did  so.  Certainly,  with  his  bright  yellow 
tie  and  his  straight  hair  of  inordinate  length  he  did 
not  present  a  particularly  conciliatory  appear- 
ance. "I  know — but  then,  you  see,  you're  an  ex- 
ception." 

"You'll  soon  be  accusing  me  of  proving  a  rule." 

"I  wonder.  Anyway,  It's  very  good  of  you  to 
encourage  me.     I  think  I'll  have  a  shot." 

It  was  eventually  decided  that  he  should  speak 
"on  the  paper"  at  the  next  debate,  in  favour  of  a 
levy  on  capital. 

"I  think  it'll  be  better  to  be  rather  stodgy, 
because  otherwise  people  will  merely  think  I'm  a 
sort  of  society  entertainer." 

"Well,  you  are,"  said  Tommy,  as  he  waved  him 
down  the  linoleum-covered  stairs. 

To-day  was  Friday,  so  there  was  plenty  of  time 
to  prepare  for  next  Thursday's  debate.  Meanwhile, 
what  a  crowded  life  it  was!  The  next  morning  he 
was  breakfasting  at  the  Carlton  Club,  the  Conserva- 
tive club  which  had  sprung  up  in  the  wake  of  the 
Star,  and  was  now  attracting  many  by  the  generous 
nature  of  its  principles  and  the  still  more  generous 
nature  of  its  dinners.  There  was  something  de- 
lightful about  these  breakfasts,  which  never  started 
before  a  quarter  to  ten  and  were  usually  prefaced 
by  a  cocktail. 

"You   are   a   most   horribly   luxurious   lot,   you 


2i8  PATCHWORK 

know,"  he  said  to  Peters,  his  host,  and  the  President 
of  the  club.  "These  rooms  are  much  too  com- 
fortable." 

Peters  stretched  himself  back  in  his  chair. 
"Well,  you  should  come  and  join  us,"  he  said. 

"Oh  no,  I'm  a  Liberal." 

"What  is  a  Liberal?" 

"I  really  don't  know,  but  I  know  I  am  one. 
Especially  when  surrounded  by  Tories." 

Peters  sipped  his  Bronx.  "Nobody  seems  to 
know  quite  what  you  are,"  he  said.  "Now  that 
you're  going  to  speak  in  favour  of  a  levy  on  capital 
we  all  imagine  you're  a  Bolshevik.  By  the  way, 
you're  going  to  stand  for  office  at  the  Union,  aren't 
you?" 

"I  may." 

"My  dear  fellow,  you  must."  Peters  barked 
out  his  sentences  in  a  harsh  but  not  unpleasant  voice. 
"You're  really  much  the  best  speaker  in  Oxford  at 
present." 

"Rot." 

"Oh  yes,  you  are."  He  peered  at  Ray  from 
over  his  glasses. 

Ray  smiled.  "I'm  a  very  hungry  one  at  present, 
at  any  rate." 

"Oh,  I'm  most  awfully  sorry,  we'll  go  and  have 
breakfast  at  once." 

After  breakfast  Ray  was  shown  over  the  club. 
It  was  certainly  most  efficiently  run  and  the  club 


BENEDICITE  219 

paper,  The  Oxford  Saturday  Review,  with  its  grey 
cover  embellished  with  a  discreet  plaque  of  Disraeli, 
made  Ray  fear  that  The  Mercury  had  a  serious 
rival. 

"Of  course,  you  know,  you  made  us  do  all  this. 
You  and  Steele." 

"All  what?" 

"Well,  found  the  club,  and  start  the  paper  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing.  I  don't  believe  Oxford  would 
have  ever  woken  up  at  all  if  you  two  hadn't  begun 
to  get  things  going." 

Ray  felt  that  what  he  said  was  true.  He  and 
Steele  had  forced  their  hands.  Already  they  had 
countless  imitators.  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  he 
had  worked. 

He  lunched  with  Clive  Stevens  at  the  House. 
Lunch  was  at  half-past  one,  but  as  usual  he  was  a 
little  late.  All  the  House  set  was  there — Guy 
Farquharson  in  a  Brigade  blazer  and  brown  suede 
shoes,  already  a  little  drunk  and  consequently  rather 
wilder  than  usual;  Victor  Cartaret,  very  cool  and 
self-possessed,  eating  an  apple  and  talking  about 
India;  Willy  Malone,  tall  and  graceful,  like  a  fawn, 
showing  Clive  his  latest  Oriental  sketches. 

Ray  talked  incessantly  during  lunch  and  after- 
wards improvised  an  entire  opera  in  which  he  was 
the  tenor,  Victor  Cartaret  was  the  soprano,  Guy 
Farquharson  the  bass,  Willy  Malone  the  premier 
danseur,   and   everybody  the   chorus.     The   lunch 


2  2o  PATCHWORK 

drifted  on  into  a  tea,  and  then  he  went  back  to  his 
rooms.  He  felt  suddenly  that  he  had  lost  his  grip 
on  life,  and  wondered  why  he  cared  so  little. 

He  sat  down  and  tried  seriously  to  put  himself 
in  his  proper  setting.  He  had  once,  out  of  curiosity, 
experimented  in  Pelmanism,  and  he  had  discovered 
that  one  of  the  first  and  most  valuable  lessons  which 
that  admirable  system  teaches  is  that  one  should 
make  up  one's  mind  without  compromise  as  to  what 
one  wants  to  do,  and  then  as  a  no  less  important 
consideration,  do  it.  What  did  he  want  to  do? 
First  of  all,  what  had  he  done? 

He  looked  back  and  saw  his  career  at  Oxford  as 
a  sort  of  patchwork.  There  were  bright  patches  and 
dark  patches,  there  were  small  patches  and  large 
patches,  but  there  seemed  to  be  no  consecutive 
pattern,  except  that  indescribable  and  vivid  pattern 
which  a  patchwork,  in  spite  of  its  chaos,  possesses, 
and  which  is  in  some  ways  more  arresting  than  any 
carefully  arranged  design.  Whatever  else  it  was,  it 
was  brilliant  and  coloured.  And  perhaps  that  was 
what  above  all  things  he  desired  to  be.  It  would 
have  been  so  easy  to  have  made  it  formal  and  con- 
ventional. He  might  have  led  the  life  of  a  scholar, 
and  cloistered  himself,  or  of  a  dreamer,  and  walked 
among  shadows,  or  of  a  politician,  and  gesticulated 
and  harangued  before  glaring  lights.  As  it  was  he 
seemed  to  have  combined  them  all.  He  remembered 
how  as  a  child  his  father  had  remonstrated  with  him 


BENEDICITE  221 

for  making  such  an  indescribable  jumble  on  his  plate 
of  chicken  and  asparagus  and  bread  sauce,  and  he 
had  replied,  with  as  much  dignity  as  his  seven  years 
could  muster,  that  "he  didn't  want  to  make  a 
garden  of  his  plate."  It  was  the  same  now.  He 
could  not  arrange  things.  He  had  so  intense  an 
interest  in  life  that  he  took  everything  as  it  came. 
The  result  was  confusion,  but  charming  confusion. 
It  was  a  pot-pourri  rather  than  a  single  scent,  a 
medley  of  chords  rather  than  a  melody,  a  patchwork 
and  not  a  pattern. 

And  yet  he  felt  at  the  moment  an  intense  desire 
for  order  and  arrangement.  During  the  first  part  of 
his  Oxford  life,  he  had  been  too  busy  to  care,  and 
after  that  the  long  vac.  had  come  with  its  gift  of 
beauty,  and  London  with  its  gift  of  tears.  But  now 
what  was  he  to  do?  To-day  seemed  to  have  been 
typical  of  his  whole  present  existence.  It  could  not 
go  on  much  longer  or  he  would  go  mad.  He  must 
do  something;  the  difficulty  was  to  know  precisely 
what.  He  couldn't  suddenly  become  an  athlete 
because  it  would  have  bored  him  so  intensely.  He 
couldn't  spend  his  time  at  the  piano  because  it  would 
mean  the  sacrifice  of  so  many  other  interests,  nor, 
for  the  same  reason,  could  he  devote  his  whole 
attention  to  work. 

As  he  thought  it  over,  he  felt  that  Steele  had 
been  right  when  he  said  that  he  should  concentrate 
on  the  Union.    Here  would  be  a  definite  object, 


222  PATCHWORK 

and  one  such  as  he  would  enjoy.  It  would  mean 
publicity,  encounter,  opposition — it  would  mean  all 
those  theatrical  things  which  stirred  his  brain  like 
wild  music.  And  he  would  have  so  great  a  chance 
of  success.  The  Star  Club  must  surely  help  him. 
It  now  numbered  several  hundred  members,  it  had 
definitely  adopted  The  Oxford  Mercury  as  its 
mouthpiece,  and  Ray's  speeches  at  its  fortnightly 
meetings  were  always  greeted  with  applause.  And 
yet,  in  the  whirl  and  tangle  of  Oxford  life,  he  seemed 
almost  to  have  forgotten  the  Star  Club.  Certainly 
he  had  not  regarded  it  with  anything  like  the  enthusi- 
asm that  he  had  felt  when  it  was  first  founded.  He 
had  helped  to  choose  its  wallpaper,  and  had  written 
an  article  in  the  Mercury  on  "The  School  of  Im- 
moral Philosophy,"  which  had  been  a  complete  but 
good-humoured  exposure  of  the  politics  of  the  hostile 
conservative  club,  but  that  was  all.  He  remem- 
bered that  evening  in  Barroni's  rooms  when  Steele 
and  he  had  first  outlined  the  policy  of  the  club. 
How  he  had  thrilled  with  excitement  at  the  thought 
of  the  possibility  of  its  regenerating  the  world 
through  the  voice  of  youth!  Liberalism — the  new 
Liberalism — those  summer  days  when  politics  had 
burned  as  purely  and  as  brilliantly  as  the  sun — 
where  had  it  all  gone? 

He  cursed  himself  for  asking  so  many  questions. 
The  Star  Club  could  very  well  look  after  itself.  He 
had  started  it,  and  he  would  give  it  more  attention 


BENEDICITE  223 

in  the  future.  What  he  needed  at  the  moment  was 
action,  and  that  action  could  be  best  directed  to  the 
concoction  of  a  speech.  He  got  up  and  took  down 
from  the  bookshelf  Pethick  Lawrence's  "Levy  on 
Capital."  And  as  soon  as  he  started  to  wrestle  with 
the  maze  of  figures  with  which  the  book  was  stored 
there  came  over  his  mind  an  absolute  peace. 


CHAPTER  V 

APPLAUSE 

THURSDAY  came,  and  with  it  the  Union 
debate.  Ray  felt  for  the  first  time  in  his  life 
rather  nervous.  There  is  a  happy  legend  among 
the  Great  Inarticulate,  that  speakers  are  born,  not 
made,  and  that  the  future  orator  emerges  from  his 
mother's  womb  at  the  end  of  a  long  peroration. 
Like  most  legends,  it  is  false.  Ray  had  only  reached 
his  present  facility  as  a  speaker  through  long  and 
laborious  practice.  At  school  he  had  stood  in  front 
of  the  glass — a  favourite  position  for  him  in  any 
case — and  had  waved  an  inky  finger  of  scorn  at 
imaginary  opponents,  and  had  curled  his  lip  with 
such  superb  bitterness  that  the  matron  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  sickening  for  some- 
thing and  had  sent  him  to  see  the  doctor.  When  he 
had  assured  himself  that  his  poses  and  gestures  were 
perfect,  he  would  spend  long  hours  in  studying 
elocution  in  order  that  every  word  he  said  would 
be  given  its  full  value.  He  had  learnt  the  valuable 
lesson  that  to  make  oneself  heard  it  is  necessary, 
as  in  singing,  to  exaggerate  one's  consonants.  At 
school  he   had  practised   this   so   assiduously,   on 

224 


APPLAUSE  225 

curious  words,  such  as  "pickedevant,"  which  he 
pronounced  "PicKedevanTT,"  and  "prink"  which 
he  called  "PRRinK,"  that  he  had  been  invited  not 
to  spit,  and  had  finally  been  caned  for  using  in- 
decent language.  However,  he  had  persevered, 
debating  on  every  possible  occasion,  and  polishing 
to  such  an  extent  that  now  he  had  obtained  a 
remarkable  facility. 

With  his  speech  on  the  Capital  Levy  he  had 
taken  particular  pains.  His  first  impulse  had  been 
to  treat  the  subject  epigrammatically — that  was  how 
he  had  won  his  first  laurels  and  it  was  certainly 
what  people  would  expect  him  to  do.  But  as  he 
considered  it  more  fully,  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that,  apart  from  the  difficulty  of  making  any  jokes 
at  all  about  so  extraordinarily  forbidding  a  subject, 
he  would  probably  create  more  of  an  impression  if 
he  delivered  a  speech  of  sombre  gravity,  and  de- 
luged his  hearers  with  a  torrent  of  figures.  These 
figures,  for  greater  effect,  he  learnt  by  heart,  and  by 
the  time  that  Thursday  evening  came  he  found 
himself  able  to  repeat  by  rote  a  dazzling  chain  of 
statistics. 

He  dined  at  the  Grid  with  Steele  and  Tommy 
Quill,  dressed,  as  the  speakers  were  accustomed,  in 
tails,  with  black  buttons  on  their  waistcoats. 

"I'm  awfully  fond  of  the  Grid,  you  know,"  said 
Tommy  as  they  sat  down.     "It's  so  unprofessional." 

Ray  twirled  his  wineglass.     "I  know.     I  should 


226  PATCHWORK 

hate  to  have  to  see  all  my  opponents  before  dinner. 
It  would  make  me  so  dreadfully  nervous." 

"My  dear  Ray,  I  thought  you  were  never 
nervous.  What  a  heavenly  sole!  Forgive  me. 
But  I  think  food  is  a  great  consolation  on  these 
occasions." 

Ray  followed  his  example  and  for  the  rest  of  the 
dinner  they  did  not  talk  of  the  impending  debate, 
and  at  ten  minutes  to  eight  left  the  club  and 
hurried  along  the  noisy  Cornmarket  to  join  the 
stream  of  inhumanity  that  flowed  into  the  Union. 

Ray  felt  that  of  all  the  various  Oxford  nights 
which  he  had  experienced  these  Union  nights  were 
perhaps  the  most  vivid.  The  crowds  of  under- 
graduates clattering  over  the  stone  floor  on  their 
way  to  the  debating  hall,  the  little  group  of  officers 
and  speakers  clustering  in  various  stages  of  ner- 
vousness in  the  steward's  office,  the  solemn  entry 
into  the  debating  hall  preceded  by  the  President 
— this  seemed  to  be  indeed  the  very  perfection  of 
politics. 

Ray,  as  soon  as  the  debate  had  begun,  lost  his 
sense  of  nervousness.  The  first  speaker,  Jack 
Risien,  was  so  extraordinarily  bad  that  he  felt 
almost  sorry  for  him.  By  one  of  those  amazing 
chances  which  occasionally  raise  mediocrities  to 
positions  of  eminence,  he  stood  at  the  end  of  term 
for  the  Presidency  and  was  elected  on  a  split  vote. 
To-night,  therefore,  was  as  important  for  him  as 


APPLAUSE  227 

it  was  for  Ray,  and  after  he  had  been  speaking  for 
five  minutes  it  was  evident  that  his  speech  was  a 
failure.  Ray  watched  him  with  amused  contempt. 
Thin  and  wiry,  with  a  little  fair  moustache,  he  gave 
the  appearance  of  a  fox  terrior  barking  ineffectively 
at  a  pack  of  wolves.  The  wolves  (and  there  were 
about  five  hundred  of  them)  signified  their  dis- 
approval by  calling  "question"  and  "shame"  and 
"withdraw"  on  every  possible  occasion,  the  only 
effect  of  which  on  Risien  was  to  make  him  thrust 
his  attenuated  nose  still  further  into  the  interior  of 
the  blue  books  by  which  he  was  surrounded. 

He  sat  down  amid  very  feeble  applause.  Ray 
heard  his  name  called  out,  and  walked  slowly  to  the 
despatch  boxes.  And  he  noticed  as  he  did  so  that 
the  reception  he  received  was  decidedly  cold.  He 
had  been  so  counting  on  applause  that  for  a  moment 
he  felt  almost  paralysed.  As  he  stood  there,  wait- 
ing for  complete  silence,  it  suddenly  flashed  across 
his  mind  that  these  papers,  The  Babe,  The  Moon, 
The  Son,  and  the  numerous  other  publications  in 
which  the  lower  strata  of  Magdalen  and  Queen's  had 
held  him  up  to  ridicule,  might  really  have  been 
taken  seriously  by  the  less  intelligent  members  of 
the  university.  He  even  remembered  a  chance 
remark  that  he  had  heard  at  the  Grid  after  dinner, 
that  he  had  himself  produced  them  as  a  form  of 
advertisement.  The  sudden  and  untimely  recollec- 
tion of  these  things   made  him   feel   for  a  brief 


228  PATCHWORK 

moment  unnerved.  He  wished  sincerely  that  he 
had  brought  some  notes  to  help  him  if  he  failed. 

And  then  he  pulled  himself  together.  He  felt 
nothing  but  anger,  a  fierce  resentment  against  every- 
body in  the  room.  Who  were  they,  these  wooden- 
faced  creatures,  with  their  beefy  bodies  and  their 
lack-lustre  eyes?  He  had  intended  to  preface  his 
speech  with  a  graceful  compliment  to  Risien  on  the 
"skill"  with  which  he  had  tackled  the  problem.  He 
threw  it  all  to  the  winds.  Instead,  he  stood  up 
straight  and  pointed  his  finger  at  Risien,  and  started 
to  speak. 

Perhaps  there  were  times  when  he  had  been 
more  convincing,  but  never  had  he  been  more 
convinced.  For  not  one  moment  did  he  take  his 
eyes  from  Risien's  face,  for  not  one  moment  did  he 
cease  to  point  his  finger  at  him,  for  not  one  moment 
did  he  cease  to  pour  out  a  stream  of  bitter  invective, 
so  bitter  that  Risien  squirmed  in  his  chair,  while 
Tommy  Quill  smiled  feebly,  wondering  if  he  ought 
to  call  Ray  to  order,  and  the  House  listened  at  first 
in  astonishment  and  then  in  amused  surprise.  .  .  . 
"He  has  glorified  mediocrity,  he  has  canonised 
corruption,  and  he  has  sung  the  praises  of  profligacy. 
That  is  the  honourable  member  whom  you  are  to 
follow,  that  is  the  honourable  member  whom  you 
are  asked  to  support."  .  .  .  Slowly  Ray  lowered 
his  accusing  finger.     The  House  roared  its  delight. 

The  rest  of  his  speech  Ray  delivered  as  he  had 


APPLAUSE  229 

intended.  It  was  a  complete  contrast  to  the  first 
part.  He  spoke  for  nearly  half  an  hour  and  never 
hesitated  in  his  flow  of  statistics,  never  blundered 
for  even  an  instant  in  the  millions  and  hundreds  of 
millions  with  which  he  dealt  as  naturally  as  if  he 
had  been  talking  about  the  weather.  The  Morning 
Post  the  next  day,  in  its  report  of  the  Union  debate, 
said  that  "Mr.  Sheldon  showed  an  assurance  and  a 
financial  ability  which,  though  in  our  opinion  mis- 
guided, would  be  sufficiently  creditable  in  a  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer."  The  House  endorsed 
The  Morning  Post's  opinion.  There  was  no  doubt 
about  their  verdict  when  he  sat  down. 

Ray  felt  supremely  happy,  and  life  seemed 
particularly  wonderful  that  night.  He  felt  that  he 
would  like  to  go  on  speaking  for  ever.  He  lay  back 
in  his  seat  on  the  committee  benches  and  closed  his 
eyes.  He  did  not  even  attempt  to  listen  to  the 
creature  who  was  feebly  attempting  to  deal  with 
some  of  his  arguments,  and  consequently  driving  a 
good  many  honourable  members  out  of  the  debating 
hall.  Instead  he  saw  himself  standing  on  a  huge 
platform  addressing  endless  crowds.  He  saw  him- 
self making  speech  after  speech,  tearing  his  soul 
with  eloquence.  He  felt  that  he  would  like  to 
speak  for  ever.  .  .  . 

The  debate  drew  to  its  close,  and  the  tellers 
advanced  from  the  voting  doors.  The  motion  was 
was  carried  by  over  a  hundred  votes. 


230  PATCHWORK 

"And  now  let's  go  along  to  my  rooms,"  said 
Tommy  Quill,  coming  down  from  his  throne. 

They  filed  out  of  the  debating  hall  on  their  way 
to  Quill's  rooms,  and  Ray  found  himself  the  object 
of  many  congratulations.  He  noticed  David  in  the 
background.     Ray  took  his  arm. 

"My  dear  child,  I  never  knew  you  came  to 
these  debates." 

David  laughed.  "I  don't  usually,  but  I'm  jolly 
glad  I  did  to-night.    You  really  were  marvellous." 

"Was  I?  I  don't  know.  Anyway  it  was  rather 
amusing.  I'm  afraid  Risien  must  be  rather  sick 
with  me  now,  though." 

"He  ought  to  be  damned  honoured  that  you  gave 
him  so  much  attention." 

David  wished  him  good-night  and  ran  into  the 
gloom  of  St.  Michael  Street,  while  Ray  walked  on  to 
catch  up  the  others.  One  went  to  Beaumont  Street 
through  mazes  of  silent  back  streets  which  were 
always  left  in  darkness.  After  the  glitter  and  bril- 
liance of  the  debating  hall  they  were  particularly 
welcome.  In  these  bewitched  entries  he  felt  that 
his  personality  became  still  more  rich  till  it  invested 
with  some  of  its  own  colour  even  the  little  line  of 
undergraduates  who  clattered  over  the  stones  in 
front.  They  looked  curiously  unreal  as  they  swung 
out  of  the  dark  entrance  into  the  broad  and  moon- 
swept  expanse  of  Beaumont  Street.  Like  a  line  of 
marionettes,  blown  here  and  there  in  the  November 


APPLAUSE  231 

wind.  .  .  .  Tommy  Quill  with  his  cloak  flapping 
grotesque  wings  behind  him,  Steele  striding  by  his 
side,  hands  in  pockets,  head  bent  forward  and  almost 
hidden  under  a  black  Homburg  hat,  Risien  caper- 
ing along,  a  thin  shadow  of  silver  and  grey,  and  a 
line  of  others,  the  noise  of  their  footsteps  echoing 
as  though  they  were  one  man.  Ray  noticed  with  a 
smile  of  amusement  that  they  were  all,  with  the 
exception  of  Steele,  walking  in  step. 

He  wondered  if  the  fact  that  they  were  walking 
in  step  was  symbolical  of  their  mental  attitude.  It 
seemed  distastefully  redolent  of  the  parade  ground. 
He  had  tried  so  hard  to  get  them  out  of  the  habit — 
perhaps  his  whole  career  at  Oxford  had  been  one 
great  endeavour  to  make  people  "break  step,"  to 
make  them  swing  away  from  the  channels  into  which 
their  lives  seemed  unnaturally  to  have  crystallised 
during  the  war.  How  far  more  delightful  it  would 
be  if  they  stopped  walking  as  though  they  were 
soldiers  in  the  wind!  Tommy  Quill  might  have 
gone  on  in  front,  a  thin,  macabre  figure,  Steele 
would  have  pursued  his  own  dauntless  way,  and  the 
others — what  gestures  and  what  individuality  might 
they  not  assume,  while  Ray  could  bring  up  the  rear, 
the  silent  one,  the  universal  critic!  If  only  they 
would  break  step !   .  .  . 

They  reached  32,  Beaumont  Street,  and  Tommy 
held  open  the  door  while  they  streamed  inside. 
Ray  blinked  his  eyes  at  the  sudden  glare  of  the 


232  PATCHWORK 

light.  At  first  he  had  not  been  sure  whether  he 
really  wanted  to  come,  but  in  a  few  moments  he 
was  glad  he  had  not  refused.  These  were;  in  spite 
of  their  divergency,  such  extraordinarily  pleasant 
young  men,  and  he  felt  that  these  gatherings  after 
the  Union  were  in  some  ways  the  most  delightful 
coteries  that  Oxford  could  provide.  Every  one  was 
exhilarated  by  the  excitement  of  the  debate,  and 
they  were  still  more  exhilarated  during  the  Presi- 
dency of  Tommy  by  the  champagne  with  which  in 
generous  quantities  he  never  failed  to  ply  his  guests. 

The  debate  had  finished  early,  so  that  there  was 
no  need  to  hurry  away  in  order  to  be  in  college  by 
twelve.  Ray  had  all  the  prestige  which  attached 
to  the  maker  of  a  brilliant  speech,  and  there  was  no 
one  in  the  room  who  jarred.  Tommy  Quill  was  an 
ideal  host,  and  dispensed  champagne  and  chocolate 
biscuits  as  though  he  were  asking  one  a  favour  to 
accept  them,  Steele  was  standing  in  a  corner  by  the 
fire  gesticulating  with  intense  energy  on  some 
abstruse  problem  of  ethics,  and,  in  addition  to  these, 
there  was  Whitely,  jaw  protruding,  mouth  open,  his 
whole  attitude  Olympian  and  aloof,  Tarn  Edwardes, 
making  cynical  remarks,  and  Jack  Risien,  trying  to 
be  clever,  while  Barroni,  in  ex-Presidential  glory, 
was  delivering  a  shower  of  epigrams  on  life  in 
general  to  nobody  in  particular. 

Ray  sat  in  the  window  and  watched  them  with 
amused  tolerance.     He  felt  at  that  moment  sub- 


APPLAUSE  233 

limely  superior  to  them  all.  Barroni  was  probably 
a  better  speaker  even  than  he,  and  Steele  pos- 
sessed a  tenacity  which  was  lacking  in  himself,  but 
he  knew  that  he  had  a  sacre  feu  which  was  denied 
to  them.  Or  that  was,  at  any  rate,  how  he  felt,  and 
even  as  the  thought  came  into  his  mind  he  contra- 
dicted it  and  told  himself  that  he  was.  being  a  fool. 
However,  he  was  too  happy  to-night  to  worry  over 
any  problems  of  introspection.  He  sipped  his 
champagne  gratefully,  and  lit  another  cigarette. 

"Meanwhile,  we  seem  to  be  neglecting  the  lion 
of  the  evening,"  said  Barroni,  coming  over  to  Ray's 
window-seat.  He  was  followed  by  a  host  of  smaller 
fry. 

Ray  blushed. 

"You  mustn't  look  embarrassed,  you  know," 
said  Tommy.  "When  you're  President  you  must 
preserve  an  everlasting  sang  froid."  The  latter 
expression  seemed  to  cause  him  labial  diffi- 
culty. 

"I'm  sure  I  should  never  do  it  as  well  as  you," 
returned  Ray. 

"Don't  be  absurd." 

"No,  really.  Some  of  those  remarks  of  yours 
were  quite  superb." 

"Well,  they  were  probably  prepared  before- 
hand." 

"Really?  In  any  case,  there  must  have  been  lots 
of  questions  which  weren't." 


234  PATCHWORK 

"Let's  put  him  through  his  paces,"  said  Barroni. 

"All  right,  I  feel  rather  in  the  mood  for  answering 
questions." 

Barroni  stood  in  front  of  him  with  folded  arms. 
"What  would  you  reply,"  he  said,  "if  some  one  got 
up  and  asked  you  why  there  was  no  soap  in  the 
lavatories?" 

"But  isn't  there?" 

"That  isn't  the  point.  You'd  have  to  answer  it 
somehow." 

"Well,  I  should  say  that  I  had  always  under- 
stood that  cleanliness  was  next  to  godliness,  and 
consequently  the  question  was  out  of  order,  be- 
cause theological  matters  can't  be  discussed  in  the 
Union." 

Barroni  laughed,  and  Steele  came  forward. 
"Now  I'll  ask  one.  Please,  sir,  why  are  there  no 
stamp  lickers  in  the  writing  rooms?" 

"Oh,  that's  easy  to  answer,"  said  Ray.  "  T 
have  always  understood  that  the  honourable  member 
was  willing  to  use  his  tongue.'  " 

"Sarcastic  brute,"  said  Steele.  "Oh  yes,  you'll 
get  on  all  right."    * 

"Well,  I'm  not  President  yet.  I'm  not  even  on 
the  standing  committee." 

"Never  mind,  you  jolly  well  will  be." 

Then  every  one  started  to  ask  him  questions — 
questions  about  every  conceivable  subject,  until  he 
was  unable  to  think  of  any  more  answers. 


APPLAUSE  235 

"Good  Lord,  it's  ten  to  twelve,  and  I've  got  to 
get  back  to  the  House,"  said  Tarn  Edwardes. 

His  remark  was  the  signal  for  the  break  up  of 
the  party. 

Ray  walked  back  to  Balliol  with  Steele. 

"Well,  aren't  you  glad  you  took  my  advice?" 

"About  making  the  speech?" 

Steele  nodded. 

"Yes,  I  rather  think  I  am." 

Steele  took  his  arm.  "I  don't  believe  you  know 
what  an  impression  you  made." 

Ray  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"No — but  seriously.  I've  hardly  ever  seen  any- 
thing like  it — at  any  rate  at  Oxford." 

"I  was  afraid  Risien  would  be  annoyed." 

Steele  laughed.  "Of  course  he  was.  Absolutely 
furious.  But  that  doesn't  matter.  He  deserved 
it.  And  anyway,  what  the  devil  does  it  matter  what 
one  person  thinks,  when  you've  delighted  every- 
body else?" 

"I  suppose  it  doesn't." 

"Of  course  it  doesn't.  You've  absolutely  wiped 
out  any  sort  of  hostility  there  was  before.  The 
wrong  sort  of  hostility,  I  mean.  Naturally  some 
people  will  hate  you  in  future,  but  then  it'll  only  be 
jealousy." 

They  turned  back  and  walked  again  down  the 
Broad.  There  was  still  five  minutes  before  mid- 
night. 


236  PATCHWORK 

"I  believe  you'd  beat  Risien  if  you  stood  for 
the  Presidency  at  the  end  of  the  term." 

"Good  Lord,  d'you  mean  to  say  that  he  is  going 
to  stand?"     Ray  looked  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"Most  certainly  he  is." 

"But  he  can't  speak." 

"I  know.  But  these  elections  don't  go  altogether 
by  speaking.  They  go  by  seniority,  and  popularity, 
and  absurd  things  like  that." 

"I  should  think  they  damned  well  were  ab- 
surd— at  any  rate,  if  a  creature  like  Risien  could 
get  in." 

"All  the  same,  I  think  you'd  beat  them  all  if 
you  tried." 

"For  the  Presidency?" 

"Yes." 

Ray  laughed.  "No,  I  don't  know  whether  I 
particularly  want  to  stand." 

"What  do  you  want  to  do?" 

"I  honestly  don't  know.  I  wish  I  did."  How 
often  had  he  asked  himself  the  same  question! 

They  walked  up  and  down,  Steele  doing  all  the 
talking.  Midnight  struck,  but  they  took  no  notice 
of  the  chiming  bells,  nor  of  the  fines  which  they 
would  have  to  pay  for  ignoring  their  warning. 
Oxford  was  deserted,  the  roofs  washed  with  silver, 
the  roads  white  and  wind-parched.  Neither  of 
them  seemed  to  feel  the  cold,  Steele  because  he  was 
talking  so  vividly  of  what  Ray  ought  to  do,  Ray 


APPLAUSE  237 

because  he  himself  was  listening  with  intense 
abstraction. 

What  a  great  faith  Steele  seemed  to  have  in 
him!  He  wondered  if  it  were  justified.  He 
listened  to  this  account  of  himself — his  past,  his 
present,  his  future — with  an  interest  accentuated  by 
the  romantic  background  against  which  it  was 
delivered.  He  seemed  to  step  outside  himself  while 
Steele  pulled  the  wires  that  animated  his  being. 

"You  see,  I  look  upon  you  as  though  you  were 
a  sort  of  work  of  art  in  which  I'm  having  some  share 
in  bringing  to  perfection.  .  .  ." 

He  ceased  talking. 

"My  God,  it's  cold." 

He  shivered.  Ray  thanked  him,  but  he  felt  he 
was  speaking  mechanically,  and  there  was  more 
warmth  in  the  handshake  he  gave  him  as  he  bid  him 
good-night  through  the  great  doors  of  Balliol  than 
in  the  meagre  words  in  which  he  had  attempted  to 
express  his  gratitude  for  Steele's  help. 

But  it  was  not  for  his  actual  advice  that  he  was 
most  grateful.  That,  after  all,  had  merely  been 
that  he  should  stand  as  Secretary  for  the  Union. 
Ray  had  promised  to  adopt  his  advice,  but  he 
realised  that  it  would  need  all  the  romantic  en- 
thusiasm of  youth  to  invest  such  a  little  contest  as 
that  with  supreme  importance.  It  was  because 
Steele  had  shown  him  another  side  of  his  own  per- 
sonality that  he  was  grateful;  he  seemed  to  have 


23  8  PATCHWORK 

thrown  open  yet  another  window  through  which  he 
might  look  in  upon  himself.  As  they  had  walked 
up  and  down  this  wide  and  wind-swept  street  he 
had  not  been  thinking  of  his  own  achievements,  past 
and  future.  He  had  been  thinking  only  of  his 
own  character.  .  .  . 

Self — always  self.    How  bitterly  cold  the  street 
seemed  suddenly  to  be!  ... 


CHAPTER  VI 

PURPLE 

RAY  had  not  realised  before  how  strenuous  was 
the  competition  in  Oxford  political  life. 
These  innumerable  clubs,  with  their  separate  or- 
ganisations, even  their  separate  papers,  must  surely 
be  a  phenomenon  caused  by  the  war.  However,  it 
was  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  He  believed  im- 
plicitly in  this  enthusiasm,  this  endless  discussion. 
It  was  in  standing  waters  that  one  should  look  for 
poison. 

However,  some  of  the  Oxford  politicians  cer- 
tainly seemed  to  carry  their  enthusiasm  to  almost 
unpleasant  lengths.  This  was  particularly  notice- 
able among  the  Union  candidates.  If  one  saw  a 
man  walking  down  the  street,  smiling  at  every  one 
he  met,  grinning  feverishly  at  recalcitrant  Indians, 
slapping  the  acquaintance  of  a  night  before  on  the 
back,  inviting  all  and  sundry  to  breakfast  or  to 
tea,  according  to  their  particular  temperaments,  one 
knew  for  certain  that  that  man  was  standing  for 
office  at  the  Union.  Ray  did  not  indulge  in  these 
habits.  In  fact,  Whitely,  who  was  standing  for 
Junior  Treasurer,  informed  him  that  unless  he  con- 

239 


24o  PATCHWORK 

ciliated  public  opinion  a  little  more,  he  would  not 
stand  the  faintest  chance  of  being  elected.  "Per- 
sonally," he  said,  'T'm  going  to  walk  about  in  front 
of  the  Union  all  the  afternoon  in  shorts." 

"In  shorts?"  asked  Ray,  in  astonishment. 

"Yes.     It  gets  the  athletic  vote,  you  know." 

"Is  there  an  athletic  vote?" 

"Oh,  rather." 

Ray  laughed.  "Well,  I'm  sure  if  they  saw  me 
in  my  shorts,  which  are  far  too  well  cut  and  quite 
devoid  of  mud,  they'd  promptly  vote  for  some  one 
else." 

Whitely  smile/1.  "Well,  you'll  get  the  intellect- 
ual vote,  and  the  vote  of  anybody  with  a  sense  of 
humour,  and  probably  the  vote  of  a  good  many 
rowing  men,  too,  as  you  seem  to  know  all  the  Blues, 
and  people  like  that." 

"Are  you  really  sure  about  all  this  Vote'  busi- 
ness? I  believe  people  merely  vote  for  the  man 
they  think  the  best  speaker." 

"Oh,  rather  not.  They  vote  in  the  most  funny 
way.  They  vote  a  lot  by  colleges,  and  by  cliques 
— some  people  even  vote  religion." 

"Damn,"  said  Ray.  "I  haven't  been  to  Balliol 
chapel  once  since  I've  been  to  Oxford." 

"Never  mind,  I  expect  you'll  get  in  all  right." 

And  get  in  he  did,  by  the  largest  majority  of  any- 
body. Jack  Risien  was  elected  President,  Rodd 
Junior  Librarian,  Whitely  Junior  Treasurer,  and 


PURPLE  241 

Ray  Secretary.  Steele  for  the  present  was  content 
to  remain  on  the  standing  committee. 

Ray  was  naturally  pleased.  He  was  having  tea 
with  David  at  Trinity  when  Steele  burst  in  with 
the  result. 

"You  got  309,  Pollen  127,"  he  said.  "It's 
splendid  of  you,  Ray.  Of  course,  you  must  stay  up 
now  till  you're  President.  The  Union's  much  the 
most  important  thing  up  here." 

How  absurdly  excited  every  one  was!  He  might 
have  been  elected  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States  from  the  fuss  that  every  one  made.  How- 
ever, it  was  certainly  pleasant  to  have  this  new 
activity. 

"Dear  old  Ray,  I'm  most  awfully  glad,"  said 
David,  "and  particularly  for  one  reason." 

"What?" 

David  paused.  "Well,  because  of  all  these 
papers  and  things.  You  see,  I  thought  there  was 
going  to  be  a  regular  sort  of  campaign  against  you, 
and  this  Union  thing  shows  that  there  isn't." 

Ray  laughed.  "That's  much  the  most  comfort- 
ing thing  you  could  have  said.  I  don't  care  how 
many  papers  say  absurd  things  about  me  provided 
I've  got  people  like  you.  Why  are  you  always  so 
absurdly  nice  to  me,  by  the  way?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.     Silly,  isn't  it?" 

"Fearfully  silly,"  smiled  Ray,  taking  his  arm. 

Lady  Sheldon  was  of  course  intensely  proud  of 


242  PATCHWORK 

Ray's  election  to  the  Union.  His  other  activities 
had  dazzled,  but  bewildered  her.  She  had  been 
vaguely  enthusiast  c  about  The  I  sis,  she  had  bound 
The  Oxford  Mercury  in  white  vellum,  she  had  cut 
out  Ray's  articles  and  poems  and  had  pasted  them 
in  a  large  book,  with  so  much  gum  that  they  all 
stuck  together,  she  had  listened  with  pride  to  the 
accounts  of  the  Star  Club,  and  she  had  been  espe- 
cially pleased  when  he  had  played  at  a  Balliol  con- 
cert. But  this  new  activity  appealed  to  her  more 
than  any  other. 

"You  see,  Ray,  your  father  was  President  of  the 
Union,"  she  said  to  him  sadly,  on  the  afternoon  he 
arrived  home.     "I  do  wish  you  could  be  too." 

"Of  course  I  will,  mother,  if  you  want  me  to 
be." 

"But  surely,  Ray,  it  isn't  as  easy  as  all  that?" 

Ray  laughed.  "Oh,  everything's  easy  if  you 
want  it  to  be." 

"You  are  a  wonderful  person,  you  know." 

"Rot." 

"I'm  so  terribly  afraid  you've  got  too  much  on 
your  mind.  And  I  don't  believe  you  get  enough 
sleep.     You  never  go  to  bed  before  midnight." 

"Well,  I  can't  sleep  if  I  go  to  bed  any  earlier." 

"That's  a  very  bad  sign.  You  ought  to  be  able 
to  sleep  whenever  you  want.  Napoleon  could, 
couldn't  he?" 


PURPLE  243 

Ray  smiled.  "Could  he?  Anyway,  I'm  not 
Napoleon." 

She  took  his  arm.  "I  know.  He  was  such  a 
horrid  man.     Come  and  see  your  room." 

They  went  upstairs. 

"Oh,  mother,  how  perfect  of  you!" 

He  gave  her  a  hug. 

"I  thought  you  would  like  to  see  them  again." 

"Them"  was  a  row  of  golliwogs  which  had  been 
Ray's  most  cherished  possessions  when  he  was  a 
child.  They  were  perched  on  the  mantelpiece — 
two  small  ones  with  silky  hair  and  blue  jackets — 
Tweedledum  and  Tweedledee;  then  a  female  with 
no  hair  and  only  one  eye — Wilhelmina  by  name; 
next  to  her  the  merest  shadow  of  a  golliwog,  one 
leg  and  both  arms  of  whom  had  been  cut  off  by 
Ray  in  an  infantile  bout  of  sadism,  and  finally 
"The  King  of  the  Cannibal  Isles,"  a  brown  golli- 
wog with  curtain  rings  in  his  ears  and  a  frayed 
gold  thread  round  his  neck. 

"You  see  .  .  ."  she  hesitated,  "I  don't  want  you 
to  grow  up  too  quickly." 

Ray  said  nothing,  but  turned  his  back  and 
rubbed  his  nose  in  Tweedledum's  hair.  When  he 
turned  round  his  mother  was  gone. 

He  sat  down  and  sighed.  Was  he,  as  she  had 
said,  "growing  up  too  quickly"?  He  was  twenty- 
one — in  his  twenty-second  year.     Good  God!     A 


244  PATCHWORK 

third  of  his  life  had  gone  already.  Youth — youth 
— would  he  ever  realise  that  he  was  young,  before 
it  was  too  late?  Sometimes,  when  he  looked  in 
the  glass  and  saw  some  absurd  little  wrinkle,  or  the 
slowly  darkening  complexion  of  his  face,  he  would 
feel  that  youth  was  already  over,  that  life  was  al- 
ready done,  before  he  had  lived  at  all.  Somehow, 
he  seemed  to  have  done  so  little.  He  thought  of 
all  his  wasted  time — he  thought  of  the  things  he 
might  have  done.  Summer  holidays  in  which  he 
would  have  lived  all  day  by  the  Cornish  seas,  long 
summer  evenings  in  which  he  would  have  walked 
with  some  friend,  summer  nights  in  which  deli- 
ciously,  and  with  half-closed  eyes,  he  would  have 
drawn  in  his  breath  and  realised  the  wonder  of 
being  eighteen. 

How  stuffy  the  room  seemed  suddenly  to  be! 
He  wandered  round  and  round  touching  anything 
which  attracted  his  notice.  He  opened  a  book  of 
poems  and  closed  it  with  a  snap.  The  rhymes 
seemed  to  jingle,  the  metre  seemed  sing-song  and 
ridiculous.  He  blew  out  a  candle  which  was  smok- 
ing and  pressed  with  nervous  fingers  the  sodden 
wax.  He  ran  his  hands  through  his  hair  and  sat 
down  at  the  empty  table. 

"Do  you  realise,"  he  said  to  himself,  "that  here 
you  are,  aged  twenty-one,  young,  strong,  healthy, 
with  everything  before  you?  In  a  few  years  you 
will  be  growing  old.     In  a  few  years  you  will  say 


PURPLE  245 

good-bye  to  youth."  He  sat  staring  at  his  clenched 
fingers. 

That  was  the  tragedy  of  life,  that  we  never 
realise  happiness  when  it  is  ours.  Ray  had  a  hor- 
ror of  growing  old  and  a  sheer  terror  of  death.  He 
sometimes  felt  about  life  as  he  had  felt,  when  he 
was  a  very  small  boy,  about  going  to  boarding 
school.  He  had  lain  awake  at  night,  blinking  his 
small  eyes,  and  twisting  his  hair  into  tiny  spiral 
curls.  "Three  years  more,"  he  had  said  to  himself, 
"only  three  years,  and  then  I  shall  have  to  go." 
He  had  fought  night  and  day  with  the  horror  of 
going  to  school.  As  each  summer  had  gone  by, 
as  each  winter  had  swept  the  leaves  from  the 
trees,  he  had  counted  the  months,  counted  the 
days.  They  seemed  to  him  then  all  that  he  had 
left. 

And  now  it  was  the  same  about  life.  Ray  sud- 
denly realised,  with  an  intensity  of  horror  that 
must  come  to  all  men  who  breathe,  that  one  day  he 
would  have  to  die.  Death — dissolution — oblivion 
— that  was  the  end  of  everything.  That  was  the 
end  of  all  his  hopes,  all  his  desires.  That  was  the 
end.  He  felt  as  though  he  were  in  a  cage,  which 
had  outside  it  death,  and  only  death.  It  was  all 
right  now — he  had  still  plenty  of  time.  He  was 
young,  he  had  many  years.  But  gradually  they 
would  shorten,  gradually  they  would  be  wiped  out. 
And  he  knew  that  when  he  was  a  very  old  man,  just 


246  PATCHWORK 

as  when  he  had  been  a  very  young  child,  he  would 
count  the  months,  count  the  days.  .  .  . 

Youth!  He  stretched  out  his  arms,  he  flung 
back  his  head,  he  drew  in  a  deep  breath.  Youth! 
He  was  young  and  yet  he  did  not  seem  to  be  happy. 
Was  it  all  an  illusion,  this  theory  of  happiness? 
Now  that  he  looked  back  on  his  school  life,  it 
seemed  the  most  wonderful  time  that  any  man  could 
possibly  have.  And  yet  it  had  not  been.  There 
had  been  moments,  it  is  true — moments  of  sheer 
ecstasy,  moments  of  perfect  friendship.  But  there 
had  been  so  many  little  things,  little  petty,  sordid, 
disagreeable  things — he  had  forgotten  those. 

And  now  it  was  the  same.  .  .  . 

After  dinner  he  decided  he  would  go  to  the  Rus- 
sian ballet.  He  had  about  him  the  old  unrest,  the 
incapacity  for  concentration  which  for  a  year  now 
he  seemed  to  have  conquered.  He  walked  quickly 
from  Curzon  Street  to  Leicester  Square,  and  en- 
tered the  Alhambra.  He  bought  a  rover  ticket  be- 
cause he  felt  incapable  of  sitting  still  in  a  stall. 

After  a  few  minutes  he  was  again  happy.  How 
exquisite  was  the  superb  folly  of  "La  Boutique 
Fantasque"!  These  ballet  girls,  with  their  chig- 
nons and  their  swollen  bustles,  pirouetting  in  pairs 
across  the  glaring  stages,  seemed  by  their  very 
futility  to  place  themselves  far  above  the  beefy  and 
perspiring  masses  in  the  stalls  who  followed  their 
movements.    Colour — ah,  that  was  what  he  wanted, 


PURPLE  247 

he  was  thirsty  for  colour.  He  drank  in  greedily  the 
flaring  crimson  of  Russian  peasant  costumes,  his 
eyes  rested  with  a  delicious  peace  on  the  silver  and 
ivory  arabesque  of  the  "Sylphides."  What  an 
astonishing  artist  Massine  was!  Those  marvellous 
choruses,  with  their  rolling  purple,  and  their  heavy 
restless  gold — those  moonlit  cedars,  under  which 
white  girls  joined  hands  with  velvet  lovers — those 
woodland  scenes  with  their  mystery  and  their  mon- 
strous crimson  flowers — they  were  almost  immoral, 
so  perfect  and  so  irresistible  was  their  appeal  to  the 
senses. 

As  he  dreamed  his  way  through  the  performance, 
Ray  realised  how  vital  a  part  colour  had  played  in 
his  life.  He  remembered  the  little  box  of  crayons 
which  he  had  found  on  his  return  from  France. 
He  remembered  much  further  back  than  that — 
bowls  of  wine-red  roses  in  old  drawing-rooms,  the 
glitter,  on  wind-swept  hills,  of  yellow  cowslips  near 
his  old  home,  and  a  medley  of  white  and  gold 
daisies  in  which  he  had  rolled  when  he  had  been  a 
child  in  pinafores.  Sunsets,  flowers,  blue  waves — 
had  they  coloured  his  life  as  they  should,  or  had 
the  colours  faded  and  gone? 

To-night  was  a  night  for  love.  Of  course,  that 
was  the  whole  secret  of  his  troubles,  that  he  had 
nothing  to  love.  He  had  not  even  a  real  friend,  let 
alone  a  lover.  He  realised,  even  while  in  his  mind 
were  reflected  the  coloured  fires  of  the  stage,  even 


248  PATCHWORK 

while  his  body  swayed  to  the  sinuous  rhythm  of 
the  orchestra,  that  all  his  brilliance  was  barren 
without  this.  Self,  self — that  was  what  his  life  was 
now.  He  loved  only  himself,  he  played  only  for 
himself,  he  laughed  only  for  himself — it  was  for 
him  only  that  the  sun  rose  and  the  moon  shone, 
that  the  sea  raged  and  the  stars  were  quenched. 

That  was  the  extraordinary  part  about  him,  at 
present,  that  while  he  was  still  capable  of  inspiring 
affection — passion,  if  you  like — he  seemed  no  longer 
able  to  return  it.  Ray  had  not  lived  what  is  called 
"a  moral  life."  He  had  too  much  sacre  feu  for  that 
and  he  was  also  too  much  of  an  artist  to  spoil  his 
youth  by  incompleteness,  or  by  the  renunciation  of 
any  experience  which  might  enrich  his  personality. 
Even  if  he  had  been  inclined  to  cloister  himself  it 
would  have  been  hardly  possible  to  have  lived  as 
he  had  done  and  remain,  in  the  words  of  noncon- 
formist parsons,  "unscathed."  He  might  possibly 
have  passed  through  school  unspotted  from  the 
world — as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did — but  to  plunge 
straight  from  school  into  the  Brigade  of  Guards, 
with  his  good  looks,  his  precocious  cleverness,  his 
charming  personality,  endowed  with  a  considerable 
income,  and  at  a  time,  moreover,  when  London  was 
in  the  depth  of  a  social  decadence  unparalleled  in 
history — to  have  expected  him  to  adhere  to  the 
strict  path  of  virtue  under  such  circumstances 
would  have  been  too  much  to  ask  not  only  of  him, 


PURPLE  249 

but  of  the  men  and  women  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded, and  in  whom  he  found  so  ready  an  audi- 
ence to  captivate. 

But  though  he  had  known  passion,  and  though 
he  had  disovered  how  easily  he  could  play  with 
other  people's  affections,  he  had  not  yet  discovered 
love.  Sometimes  he  doubted  whether  he  would 
ever  find  it  in  the  class  in  which  his  lot  had  been 
cast. 

His  eyes  wandered  contemptuously  over  the 
swaying  audience.  The  lights  had  gone  up,  and  he 
could  see  distinctly  over  the  stalls.  There  in  the 
fifth  row  was  Marie  Featherstone.  He  recognised 
the  pale  hair  at  once,  and  saw  that  she  was  wearing 
her  famous  necklace,  which  had  been  robbed  of  one 
of  its  finest  pearls  to  provide  Ray  with  a  tie-pin. 
Behind  her  was  Sidney  Vernon,  who  had  left  Eton 
under  a  cloud,  and  had  departed  from  the  Brigade 
in  a  thunderstorm.  He  was  now  endeavouring  to 
catch  Ray's  eye,  but  Ray  refused  to  be  caught,  and 
rested  his  gaze  on  Diana  Blois,  who  was  sitting 
alone  and  in  black,  her  profile  adjusted  on  the 
utilitarian  principle — that  it  might  give  the  greatest 
happiness  to  the  greatest  number.  Ray  smiled, 
when  he  saw  her,  at  the  recollection  of  the  last 
words  that  had  passed  between  them.  She  had 
said,  at  rather  a  critical  moment:  "I  think  you're 
the  most  wonderful  person  I've  ever  met."  Ray 
had  replied,  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  "I  prob- 


250  PATCHWORK 

ably  am."  Never  had  he  seen  an  affection  wither 
so  speedily.  It  would  perhaps  have  withered  even 
more  speedily  if  she  had  known  that  it  was  not  the 
first  time  that  he  had  given  that  answer,  and  under 
similar  circumstances. 

What  fools  they  all  were!  He  felt  that  he  would 
like  to  go  out  into  the  street,  and  find  some  charm- 
ing unaffected  person  like  a  bank  clerk,  whose 
natural  simplicity  had  not  been  warped,  and  who 
would  like  him  for  himself,  and  not  for  his  looks, 
or  his  conversation,  or  his  money.  If  he  knew 
anybody  like  that  it  would  be  delightful  to  go  any- 
where with  him — to  cinemas,  or  to  A. B.C.  shops,  or 
to  share  a  shilling  at  a  coffee  stall.  Or  if  he  wanted 
love  and  not  friendship  he  would  have  found  it  an 
adventure  to  take  a  girl  of  the  streets,  to  treat  her 
with  chivalry  and  with  gentleness,  to  dress  her  in 
beautiful  clothes,  to  set  her  walking,  like  Manon 
Lescaut,  before  gilded  mirrors.  .  .  . 

What  a  blasted  prig  he  was  becoming  even  in 
imagination!  He  turned,  shouldered  his  way 
through  the  crowd,  and  went  to  get  a  drink. 

And  the  little  circle  at  the  bar  wondered  who 
this  young  man  was  who  said  such  amusing  things  to 
the  barmaids,  and  who  was  so  generous  in  his  gifts 
of  "whiskey  sours"  to  old  gentlemen  whom  he  had 
never  in  his  life  seen  before.  And  why  he  sud- 
denly went  away  with  the  shadow  of  so  strange  a 
laughter  in  his  eyes.  .  .  . 


PART  III 


CHAPTER  I 

LAVENDER 

IT  was  Ray's  last  day  at  home  before  his  return 
to  Oxford,  and  he  decided  to  spend  it  with  his 
mother.  He  was  therefore  rather  annoyed  when 
Helen  rang  up  in  the  morning  and  announced  her 
intention  of  coming  to  lunch.  He  had  not  seen 
her  since  the  last  day  of  the  summer  vacation,  and 
she  always  seemed  to  act  as  an  irritant. 

"So  tiresome,"  said  Lady  Sheldon,  as  she  put 
down  the  recevier.  "But  really  I  couldn't  think 
of  any  excuse." 

"Damn!" 

"Ray!" 

"Sorry,  mother."  He  bent  down  to  give  her  a 
kiss.  "But  I  specially  looked  forward  to  having 
this  day  by  ourselves." 

"I  know." 

"And  Helen  is  so  tedious  nowadays." 

He  frowned  and  went  upstairs  to  see  if  his  pack- 
ing had  been  finished.  Everything  seemed  to  be 
arranged  except  his  books,  which  he  placed  hap- 
hazard at  the  top  of  one  of  his  trunks.  During 
the  last  three  weeks  he  had  been  working  very 

253 


254  PATCHWORK 

hard  indeed — sometimes  as  much  as  ten  hours  a 
day,  and  though  he  was  pleased  to  have  digested 
a  solid  mass  of  one  of  his  most  difficult  periods  of 
history — the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
he  yet  felt  exceedingly  tired,  and  quite  unable  to 
cope  with  so  aggressive  a  personality  as  Helen's. 

She  was  particularly  irritating  this  morning. 

"And  how  are  the  nineties  getting  on?"  she  said, 
when  she  arrived. 

He  laughed  in  spite  of  himself.  "Helen,  I  warn 
you  that  I'm  feeling  particularly  on  edge  just  now, 
and  if  you  start  saying  that  sort  of  thing  ..." 

"Well?" 

"I  shall  smack  you,  that's  all." 

"Oh,  how  very  dull!  By  the  way,  do  you  like 
my  hat?" 

"No." 

"Good.  I'm  so  glad."  She  went  to  the  glass 
and  looked  at  herself  with  approval.  Then  she 
turned  round.  "I  think  you  might  say  something. 
It  is  a  very  significant  hat." 

"What  does  it  signify?  That  sort  of  pillar-box 
red  might  mean  anything." 

"Labour." 

"Do  you  always  air  your  political  opinions  in 
your  clothes?" 

"Silly  question,  Ray.  Not  up  to  your  usual 
standard." 


LAVENDER  255 

"I  know,  I'm  tired." 

"Too  many  activities  at  Oxford?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"By  the  way,  I  never  congratulated  you  on  your 
Union  business." 

"Oh,  that's  nothing." 

"It's  a  very  great  deal.  I  intend  to  see  that 
you're  President." 

"Thanks." 

"Only  why  on  earth  you  choose  to  pretend  to 
to  be  a  Liberal,  I  can't  understand." 

"No,  you  couldn't." 

"It's  worse  than  the  nineties.  It's  the  sixties 
really.  We  shall  have  you  going  back  to  Glad- 
stonian  collars  soon,  and  writing  books  on  Church 
and  State." 

He  said  nothing. 

"Give  me  a  cigarette,  please.  No,  not  one  of 
those  beastly  things.     Haven't  you  got  a  gasper?" 

"No,  I  haven't.  And  I  think  it's  revolting  for 
any  girl  to  smoke  gaspers." 

"Don't  you  approve  of  women  smoking?" 

"Yes.     But  not  gasping." 

"Well,  I  shall  have  to  smoke  one  of  my  own. 
I  can't  afford  those  elaborate  gold-tipped  creations 
that  you  get." 

She  produced  a  tiny  cigarette-case,  covered  with 
emeralds. 


256  PATCHWORK 

"You  could  keep  yourself  in  decent  cigarettes 
for  about  forty  life-times  if  you  sold  that,"  said 
Ray. 

She  pretended  not  to  hear  him. 

"Tell  me  why  you're  a  Liberal." 

"Because  it's  the  only  thing  to  be." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  I  can't  talk  before  lunch.  Have  a  cocktail 
or  something." 

"All  right." 

He  went  to  the  table  and  mixed  one. 

"Italian  as  well  as  French?" 

She  nodded. 

"And  will  you  have  ice  in  it,  or  is  it  cold  enough?" 

"Ice  in  it,  please.    I  like  to  hear  the  noise." 

"Now  you're  being  decadent  yourself." 

"Oh  no.  Merely  greedy.  Cheerio.  And  here's 
mamma!" 

Lady  Sheldon  came  in,  and  gave  her  a  kiss. 
Ray  was  struck  by  the  extraordinary  contrast  be- 
tween the  two. 

Although  his  mother  was  at  least  twenty  years 
older  than  Helen  she  always  gave  him  the  impres- 
sion of  being  the  younger  of  the  two.  Not  that 
Helen  looked  old.  Indeed,  with  her  fresh  com- 
plexion, her  smooth  black  hair,  and  her  lithe 
straight  figure,  she  looked  like  an  eager  boy  of 
nineteen.  But  there  was  a  masterful  expression  on 
her  face  which  made  one  forget  her  youth. 


LAVENDER 


257 


"I've  just  been  giving  Ray  advice,"  she  said,  as 
she  returned  the  kiss. 

"How  nice  of  you!"  said  Lady  Sheldon  vaguely. 

"It  wasn't  in  the  least  nice.    It  was  merely  silly." 

"Oh,  Ray." 

"Yes,  it  was.    Mother,  do  look  at  Helen's  hat." 

"It's  a  very  pretty  hat." 

Helen  blew  triumphant  waves  of  smoke  to  the 
ceiling.  "There  you  are.  Ray.  said  it  was  impos- 
sible." 

"I  didn't.  I  merely  said  that  it  was  silly  to  air 
one's  political  convictions  in  one's  headgear." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Ray?"  said  his  mother. 

"Well,  it's  a  Labour  hat.  Or  rather,  Helen  says 
it  is." 

"Oh,  I  see."  Lady  Sheldon  looked  at  it  as  if 
it  would  explode. 

"Ray's  got  no  taste  at  all,"  said  Helen. 

His  mother  was  up  in  arms  at  once.  "How 
horrid  of  you,  Helen!  He  designed  the  dress  I'm 
wearing  now." 

Helen  looked  for  a  moment  taken  aback.  "I'm 
sorry.  Hundreds  of  apologies.  Because  it  really 
is  a  very  beautiful  dress." 

It  was.  Grey  satin,  exquisitely  draped,  with  a 
hanging  overmantle  of  silver  net,  decorated  with  tiny 
silver  rose-leaves. 

"But  I  wasn't  quarrelling  with  his  aesthetics 
really.    It  was  his  politics." 


25  8  PATCHWORK 

"I  know.  I  hope  they  are  all  right.  His  father 
was  a  Conservative,"  she  added  sadly. 

"That's  worse  still.*  He  ought  to  make  up  his 
mind,  and  go  red." 

"Red?" 

"Labour." 

"Oh,  Helen  dear,  how  dreadful!" 

"It  isn't  dreadful  in  the  least." 

During  lunch  she  expounded,  her  theories  at 
length.  Neither  Ray  nor  his  mother  did  much 
talking.  Helen,  apparently,  that  morning-  had  been 
to  the  Bomb  Shop — Henderson's  in  Charing  Cross 
Road. 

"Such  a  fascinating  shop,"  she  said.  "No  win- 
dows.      You  just  walk  right  in." 

"And  what  happens  when  you  get  inside?" 

"Nothing  very  much.  You  just  feel  extraordi- 
narily wicked  to  be  there.  All  the  Bolshevik  litera- 
ture, you  know.  The  Daily  Herald  seems  quite 
respectable  compared  with  some  of  the  things. 
Great  piles  of  The  Communist,  and  The  Plebs,  and 
stocks  of  naughty  little  pamphlets  with  pictures  of 
bloated  capitalists  on  the  outside." 

"How  very  feeble!"  said  Ray. 

"Feeble?" 

"Yes.  It's  all  so  obvious.  And  so  cheap.  It's 
a  sort  of  hopelessness,  really.  You  think  you're 
doing  something  remarkably  fine  by  going  over  to 


LAVENDER 


259 


the  Labour  party,  whereas  you're  really  showing 
that  you've  given  up  hope." 

"I  certainly  have  given  up  hope  of  the  present 
organisation  of  society." 

"And  what  sort  of  hope  have  you  of  any  other 
organisation?  The  only  reason  you  can  have  for 
going  'Labour/  apart  from  a  vague  sort  of  senti- 
mentalism,  is  economic.  And  you  know  nothing 
about  economics." 

"Neither  do  you." 

"On  the  contrary,  I  happen  to  know  a  good  deal." 

"Anyway,"  said  Helen  defiantly,  "I  like  the 
atmosphere  of  the  place." 

"  'Atmosphere'  is  the  most  meaningless  word  in 
the  English  language." 

"Is  it?  Anyway,  I  like  it.  I  like  red  ties,  and 
the  people  that  wear  them.  You  meet  the  most 
exciting  people  there.  Rather  dirty,  of  course,  but 
wonderfully  vigorous.  I  was  talking  to  a  Russian 
anarchist  this  morning." 

"Helen,  really!"  said  Lady  Sheldon.  "We  shall 
all  be  arrested." 

"No,  we  shan't.  He  was  a  most  charming  man. 
He  said,  'When  we've  got  Whitehall  the  country  is 
ours.'  I  said  that  was  what  I  always  thought  my- 
self.    I'm  meeting  him  at  the  Cafe  Royal  to-night." 

"He'll  probably  knife  you." 

She  clapped  her  hands.  "Do  you  think  he  will? 
How  wonderful!" 


26o  PATCHWORK 

"Masochist." 

"What?" 

"It  means  a  desire  to  be  hurt.  Don't  you  know 
anything  about  psycho-analysis?" 

"Not  much." 

"Well,  I  should  read  some  if  I  were  you.  It 
would  probably  appeal  to  you." 

"Very  well,  I  will.  The  Bomb  Shop  was  full 
of  books  on  psycho-analysis,  but  I  thought  they 
looked  rather  dull.  Compared  to  the  other  things, 
at  any  rate." 

"What  other  things?" 

"Artistic  things,  for  instance.  I  got  a  wonder- 
ful magazine  called  Blast" 

"My  dear  Helen,  it's  pre-war." 

She  looked  a  little  crestfallen.  "I  didn't  know 
you  knew  it,"  she  said. 

"Of  course  I  know  it.  I've  gone  through  all 
the  stages  you're  going  through  now." 

She  glanced  at  him  indignantly.  "Well,  I  don't 
care  what  you  say.  I  liked  Blast.  It's  got  lovely 
Wyndham  Lewis  drawings  in  it,  and  some  sculpture 
by  Gaudier-Brezka,  and  whole  pages  of  names  of 
people  to  be  blasted." 

"Who,  for  instance?" 

"I  can't  remember  all  of  them.  The  Bishop  of 
London  comes  in,  I  know.  And  Father  Bernard 
Vaughan,  and  Rudyard  Kipling,  and  Chopin,  and 
Oscar  Wilde,  and  Mr.  Gladstone." 


LAVENDER  261 

"With  all  of  which,  I  suppose,  you  cordially 
agree?" 

"Rather." 

"It  must  be  a  terrible  book,"  said  Lady  Sheldon, 
with  a  little  shiver. 

"No.  It's  just  amusing.  And  vigorous."  She 
looked  at  Ray  maliciously. 

"Helen,  suppose  we  drop  the  'hearty  stunt'  till 
after  lunch?" 

"All  right." 

However,  it  was  hardly  evident  that  she  did  so. 
And  after  lunch  she  insisted  on  playing  Dome 
Stravinsky  etudes,  which  she  had  now  learnt  by 
heart,  and  followed  that  up  by  a  particularly  harsh 
study  by  Ravel,  which  would  have  been  welcome 
enough  on  some  occasions,  but  which  seemed 
intolerably  out  of  place  on  this  misty  afternoon  of 
January.  No  amount  of  hints  would  make  her  go, 
and  it  was  not  till  nearly  tea-time  that  she  finally 
signified  her  intention  to  depart. 

"And  of  course  you  must  see  me  back,"  she  said. 

"Very  well,"  said  Ray.  He  had  by  now  given 
up  all  hope  of  any  appreciable  time  with  his 
mother. 

He  ordered  his  car,  and  soon  they  were  running 
into  Clarges  Street. 

"There  you  are,"  he  said,  as  he  helped  her  out. 

"Won't  you  come  in?" 

He  shook  his  head  firmly.    "No;   it's  my  last 


262  PATCHWORK 

day  at  home  and  I  want  to  see  something  of 
mother." 

"Very  well.  Only  I  wish  you  could  have  come 
in  for  a  minute.  I've  got  a  lot  of  new  pictures — 
Mark  Gertler,  some  Nash's,  and  a  Bomberg. 
They'd  do  you  good." 

"They'd  about  finish  me  off." 

"So  long  then."  She  ran  quickly  up  the  steps, 
and  Ray  sank  into  the  car  with  a  sigh  of  relief. 

Never  had  he  felt  so  annoyed  with  Helen. 
When  he  had  last  seen  her,  so  soon  after  the 
coloured  pastorale  of  Raven  Court,  she  had  filled 
him  with  some  of  her  own  uncompromising 
modernity,  and  it  had  been  because  of  her  that 
he  had  ridden  his  strange  bus-ride  to  the  East  End, 
and  had  eaten  that  strange  dinner  with  "Ailsa." 

But  now  any  such  adventure  seemed  repulsive. 
He  felt  more  than  ever  that  he  wanted  quiet, 
gracious  things.  Even  the  thought  of  Oxford  on 
the  morrow,  with  its  vigorous,  full-blooded  life, 
was  unwelcome. 

When  he  got  back  to  Curzon  Street,  he  went 
upstairs  once  more,  and  gave  a  final  look  round. 
Then  he  came  downstairs. 

What  should  he  do?  Perhaps  a  little  music 
would  be  a  good  thing.  He  went  into  the  drawing- 
room,  and  saw  his  mother  sitting  on  the  floor, 
surrounded  by  large  leather  books. 


LAVENDER  263 

"Hullo,  mother.    What  are  you  doing?" 

"Oh,  Ray,  I  didn't  know  you'd  come  back." 

"Yes,  I  had  to  see  Helen  home." 

"I'm  so  glad  she's  gone." 

"So  am  I.     May  I  come  in,  or  are  you  busy?" 

"Of  course.     I  was  waiting  for  you." 

He  came  in  and  sat  by  her  side.  It  was 
exquisitely  restful  to  sit  here,  so  quietly.  He  felt 
a  pang  of  remorse  to  think  that  he  had  allowed 
himself  to  be  persuaded  to  take  Helen  home  on 
his  last  day.  His  mother  looked  frail  and  lonely 
sitting  by  the  fire  in  this  room  of  chintz  and 
lavender. 

The  room  too  seemed  suddenly  to  challenge  him 
with  the  memories  of  forgotten  things.  It  was 
quite  different  to  the  rest  of  the  house,  and  had  been 
furnished  especially  by  his  mother.  Papered  in 
dull  brown,  with  a  frieze  of  old  ivory,  it  gave,  in 
spite  of  its  many  pictures  and  the  multitudinous 
silver  ornaments  which  lay  on  its  tables,  an  influence 
of  fragrant  detachment.  There  were  pictures 
everywhere  on  the  old  walls,  coloured  prints  of 
Darby  and  Joan,  and  water-colours,  fly-blown,  but 
still  sweet  and  delicate,  which  she  had  painted  when 
she  had  been  a  girl,  at  Cannes.  .  .  . 

"What  are  you  doing?"  he  said  again. 

"Being  very  silly,  Ray,  I'm  afraid,  as  usual," 
she  said  softly,  taking  his  hand. 


264  PATCHWORK 

"Tired?" 

"Yes.  Helen  tired  me.  I  felt  I  wanted  to 
forget  for  a  little  bit  that  I  was  old." 

"You  aren't." 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  don't  feel  young  any 
more.     I  wish  you  weren't  going  to-morrow,  Ray." 

"So  do  I." 

"Do  you  really?"  She  paused.  "You  know,  I 
think  I  shall  have  to  go  to  Cannes  again." 

Ray  looked  at  her   in  astonishment.     "Why?" 

"I'm  afraid  I  should  have  told  you  before,  but 
I  didn't  want  to.  It's  merely  that  I  saw  the  doctor 
yesterday  .  .  ." 

"Yes." 

"And  he  says  I  simply  must  go  away  from 
England." 

"Why,  is  it  too  cold?" 

"Yes,  and  worrying,  and  generally  bad  for  me. 
You  see,  I've  got  such  a  silly  inside,  Ray,  and 
it  behaves  itself  better  on  the  Riviera." 

Ray  looked  very  sad.  "I  wish  you  hadn't  to 
go.  It  seems  such  a  long  way  away.  And  I  like 
to  think  you're  in  London  when  I'm  at  Oxford, 
so  that  I  could  get  down  in  an  hour  or  two  if  you 
wanted  me." 

"Never  mind.  You'll  come  out  there  during 
next  holidays,  and  we  can  just  sit  in  the  sun  there 
together,  can't  we?" 

He  nodded. 


LAVENDER  265 

"But  it's  your  last  day,  so  don't  let's  be 
depressing  now." 

She  bent  over  the  photograph  album. 

"I  don't  looked  depressed  there,  do  I?" 

He  laughed.     "Where?" 

She  showed  him — a  photograph  of  a  young 
girl,  in  bustles  and  flounces,  seated  on  the  stone 
balustrade  of  a  long  terrace,  shading  her  eyes  from 
the  sun. 

"Good  Lord,  is  that  you?" 

"Oh,  Ray,  I  must  have  changed  dreadfully  if 
you  can't  recognise  it." 

"How  beastly  of  me!  Of  course  I  recognise 
it.     It  was  the  dress  that  was  so  funny." 

"It  was  a  very  pretty  dress,"  she  said.  "Pink 
muslin.  We  all  used  to  wear  pink  muslin  then." 
She  turned  over  the  pages.  "And  there  I  am  again. 
At  Ravenna.  My  mother  always  used  to  go  there 
in  September,  and  sometimes  I  went  too.  There 
she  is,  poor  mother.  Such  a  wonderful  woman, 
too." 

She  put  the  book  down  with  a  sigh,  and  took 
up  a  little  paper-knife  of  jade  and  ivory  from  the 
table  by  her  side. 

"All  these  things  on  this  table  were  hers.  This 
paper-knife  was  given  her  by  Daudet.  Her  father 
— that  was  your  great-grandfather — a  very,  very 
old  man,  was  terribly  upset  when  it  arrived,  but 
when  he  discovered  Daudet  was  married,  and  that 


266  PATCHWORK 

'Sappho'  was  in  the  public  library,  he  didn't  mind 
so  much." 

She  took  up  a  minute  harp,  made  of  silver, 
with  frail  gold  threads  for  wires,  and  stops  of 
miniature  pearls. 

"And  this,  I  remember,  she  bought  in  Paris  one 
day,  when  I  was  only  about  twelve  years  old.  She 
used  to  sing  to  the  harp,  you  know — always  stand- 
ing very  straight,  with  her  white  hands  looking  so 
beautiful  when  she  played.  I  do  wish  you'd  known 
her,  Ray.     She  would  have  loved  you  so." 

"Tell  me  all  about  her." 

She  put  down  the  harp  and  looked  into  the  fire. 

"I  really  don't  know  what  there  is  to  tell, 
except  that  she  was  wonderfully  musical.  A  most 
lovely  voice — very  high  and  sweet — oh,  so  high — 
just  like  yours  when  you  were  at  school.  She 
used  to  sing  to  me.     Am  I  being  sentimental?" 

He  tightened  his  hold  on  her  hand,  and  shook 
his  head  gravely. 

"Old  Italian  songs,  you  know — she  was  half 
Italian.  All  the  arias — trilling  so  beautiful,  like 
a  thrush.  She  was  dreadfully  sad  when  her  voice 
went.  And  so  was  I.  I'm  afraid  I  must  have  been 
cruel — I  used  to  be  cross  because  she  wouldn't 
sing.  I  never  understood,  you  see.  And  then  she 
died — just  before  you  were  born." 

She  paused  and  looked  wistfully  at  the  little  row 
of  silver  ornaments. 


LAVENDER  267 

She  picked  up  one.  "That  was  an  old  pot- 
pourri bowl  which  was  given  her  by  Rossini,  when 
she  was  quite  small.  It  was  always  kept  full  of 
flowers  in  Ravenna.  Such  wonderful  flowers — so 
red  and  sweet.  You  never  saw  them.  I  should 
like  you  to  go  there  one  day.  .  .  ."  She  spoke  as 
though  she  were  dreaming. 

"We'll  both  go." 

She  shook  her  head.  "And  that  spoon  too. 
Do  you  see?  That  was  her  christening  spoon.  .  .  ." 
She  looked  at  him  suddenly.  "Ray,  I'm  boring 
you?" 

"Mother,  don't  be  so  silly,"  he  laughed. 
"Please  go  on,  I  could  listen  to  you  for  ever." 

She  laughed,  more  to  herself  than  to  him. 

"I  always  wish  things  could  have  been  different." 

"Different?" 

"Yes  .  .  .  you  see,  I  feel  that  you  have  had 
such  a  wretched  time  compared  to  the  time  you 
might  have  had." 

"My  dear  mother,  how  perfectly  absurd! 
Why?" 

"I  don't  know  really.  But  you've  never  had 
brothers  or  sisters — you've  never  had  a  lot  of  people 
who  love  you." 

"I've  had  you." 

"Yes — but  that's  not  enough.  No,  really  it 
isn't.  When  I  was  a  girl  we  had  such  wonderful 
times  together.    And  your   father  too — so   many 


268  PATCHWORK 

brothers.  They  made  it  all  so  happy.  And  then, 
everything  was  so  much  easier  for  young  people 
when  I  was  a  girl.  We  didn't  have  any  dreadful 
wars,  with  all  one's  friends  killed,  and  everything 
going  wrong.  I  know  I  can't  explain  it  properly, 
but  things  were  much  nicer  when  I  was  a  girl." 

There  was  silence  for  a  moment,  and  then  she 
got  up  and  went  to  the  mantelpiece. 

"Do  you  remember,  when  you  got  back  from 
France,  you  told  me  that  you  thought  this  room 
was  far  too  crowded  with  ornaments?" 

He  nodded.    "But  I  don't  think  so  now." 

"Yes,  I'm  afraid  it  still  is,  but  somehow  I  can't 
get  rid  of  any  of  them.  They've  all  got  their 
histories,  you  see.    This  little  bowl  of  shells " 

"Yes?" 

"I  picked  it  up  one  wonderful  morning  at  Capri. 
And  so  did  you." 

"Did  I?     I'm  afraid  I  don't  remember." 

"No,  you  couldn't.  You  were  only  three — not 
quite  that,  I  believe.  You  swallowed  one — cowries, 
aren't  they? — and  we  were  all  terribly  afraid  you 
would  be  ill.  But  you  weren't.  I  was  so  proud 
when  you  got  over  it." 

He  laughed. 

"And  this  gold  powder  box.  Had  you  ever 
noticed  it?  It's  so  beautifully  done — all  the  fleur 
de  lys  on  the  sides  are  so  pretty.    And  those  little 


LAVENDER  269 

sapphires — one  of  them  is  rather  loose.  This  was 
supposed  to  belong  to  Marie  Antoinette.  My 
father  gave  it  to  me  when  I  was  twenty-one.  I 
was  always  rather  afraid  of  my  father." 

"Why?" 

"He  was  very  stern,  and  military-looking.  So 
different  from  mother.  Not  at  all  artistic  either, 
except  in  his  love  of  flowers.  When  he  was  grow- 
ing old  he  thought  of  nothing  but  flowers.  He 
had  the  most  beautiful  orchids.  People  used  to 
come  to  see  them  from  all  over  England.  And  the 
garden — you  never  saw  it.  Mother  was  totally 
different  after  he  died." 

She  paused,  and  then  said  suddenly:  "Ray,  do 
you  believe  in  spiritualism?" 

He  smiled.  "What  a  funny  question!  I  don't 
know,  why?" 

"Because  such  a  strange  thing  happened  soon 
after  his  death.  Mother  was  still  living  at  Stoke, 
in  Yorkshire — our  old  home — and  she  heard  that  a 
wonderful  medium  was  coming  to  Leeds,  which  was 
about  fifteen  miles  away.  And  she  suddenly  decided 
that  we  should  go  to  hear  her.  She  was  holding  a 
great  meeting  in  the  Town  Hall.     And  so  we  went. 

"I  remember  it  all  so  clearly.  The  long  drive, 
and  the  bad  roads,  and  mother  wrapped  up  in  her 
cloak,  and  the  foot-warmers  gradually  going  cold. 
The  meeting  had  started  by  the  time  we  arrived  and 


270  PATCHWORK* 

we  had  to  go  in  at  the  back.  It  was  all  quite  dark, 
and  so  nobody  could  have  seen  us  go  in,  or  have 
known  where  we  were  sitting. 

"And  for  some  time  nothing  very  exciting 
happened.  The  usual  sort  of  experiments,  bell- 
ringing  and  rapping.  I  remember  wishing  that  we 
hadn't  come.  And  then  suddenly  the  medium — 
that  is  the  name,  isn't  it? — suddenly  she  stopped 
and  pointed  to  the  back  of  the  hall  where  we  were 
sitting.  It  was  so  dark  that  nobody  could  see  us, 
but  I  knew  she  was  pointing  to  us. 

"And  then  she  described  my  mother,  and  said, 
'I  have  a  message  for  her.'  And  she  described  my 
father  absolutely  distinctly,  his  white  hair,  and  his 
black  eyes,  and  a  little  habit  he  had  of  clasping  and 
unclasping  his  hands  behind  his  back.  I  remember 
how  tightly  my  mother  held  my  hand  when  she  was 
describing  him.  I  was  afraid  she  would  faint.  And 
then  the  medium  said  just  one  sentence,  and  it 
seemed  as  though  my  father  were  speaking.  'Tell 
her,'  she  said,  'that  I  have  a  beautiful  garden 
here.' " 

She  paused  and  looked  at  Ray.  She  was  not 
sure  whether  he  had  been  listening.  He  asked  her 
to  go  on. 

"That  was  all,  really.  I  thought  it  very 
wonderful." 

"It  was  beautiful,"  he  said. 


LAVENDER 


271 


"I  know.  Mother  believed  absolutely  that  he 
had  spoken.  You  see,  the  medium  couldn't  possibly 
have  known  who  we  were.  And  it  was  so  exactly 
what  my  father  would  have  said  to  comfort  her. 
She  was  so  much  happier  after  that,  although  she 
only  lived  two  years  more.  She  used  to  live  in  the 
garden,  and  always  had  it  kept  as  he  would  have 
liked  it.     That's  why  I  asked  you — if  you  believed." 

"I  believe  that,"  he  said. 

He  threw  a  log  on  the  fire  and  watched  the 
sparks  race  up  the  chimney.  His  mother  had  never 
told  him  before  so  many  things  about  her  youth. 
There  was  a  queer  pathos  about  these  sudden 
revelations,  which  were  quite  different  to  the  usual 
whimsical  vitality  which  she  possessed.  As  she 
talked,  and  as  she  drew  memories  from  the  little 
things  by  which  she  was  surrounded,  he  realised 
how  lonely  her  life  must  have  been.  She  had  no 
one  in  the  world  but  Ray.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  till  nearly  eight  that  she  finally  went 
up  to  dress.  She  found  herself  wondering  if  she 
had  been  "silly"  to  tell  Ray  so  much.  However, 
she  was  glad  she  had  done  so.  She  seemed  so  much 
closer  to  him,  now. 

Why  had  she  to  go  to  Cannes?  It  would  be  so 
dreadful  to  be  so  far  away  from  home.  Ray  might 
not  want  to  come  out  there  for  the  holidays.  She 
felt  she  was  being  selfish  to  go.     But  then   the 


272  PATCHWORK 

doctor  had  insisted,  and  she  was  very  tired.  .  .  . 
However,  this  was  his  last  night,  and  she  must 
not  be  depressed.  There  would  be  time  enough  for 
that  when  he  had  gone.  Resolutely  she  pulled  her- 
self together,  and  went  downstairs  with  a  smile  on 
her  lips. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  RETURN  TO  THE  ABNORMAL 

RAY  felt  unaccountably  sad  the  next  day.  To 
say  good-bye  to  his  mother  seemed  as  hard 
as  it  had  been  when  he  had  been  a  boy  going  to 
school.  And  as  he  drove  away  from  Curzon  Street 
he  felt  an  inexpressible  desire  to  get  out  of  the  car 
and  run  back  once  again  to  that  lonely  grey  figure 
he  had  left  behind. 

But  as  soon  as  he  drew  near  his  destination  he 
felt  once  again  the  dawning  magic  of  this  city  which 
had  been  to  him  so  infinitely  precious.  He  knew 
that  he  was  powerless  to  resist.  Every  time  he 
returned  he  felt  as  though  he  had  never  visited  it 
before.  As  the  train  steamed  into  the  station  the 
vision  of  Oxford's  spires  broke  upon  him  with  a 
freshness  made  all  the  more  poignant  by  the 
memory  of  the  fuliginous  wilderness  he  had  for- 
saken. Sometimes  dreaming  in  the  sun,  some- 
times dappled  by  rain,  sometimes  unnaturally  white 
under  a  decrescent  moon — to-day  a  fairyland  of 
frost  and  spangled  snow.  What  was  it  about  this 
city  that  troubled  so  exquisitely  one's  senses?  He 
had  never  felt  the  same  about  Paris,  or  London. 

273 


274  PATCHWORK 

There  his  entrances  had  been  furtive  and  prosaic — 
poetry  had  been  reserved  for  the  departure.  He 
wondered  if  his  departure  from  Oxford  would  be 
like  that.  He  had  never  thought  of  it  before  and 
the  thought  was  unwelcome.  It  would  need  a  very 
magnificent  exit,  a  very  superb  gesture,  unless  it 
were  most  lamentably  to  fall  short  of  his  present 
way  of  living. 

It  was  snowing.  Like  white  petals  the  flakes 
glided  through  the  open  window  of  his  hansom  cab. 
Here  was  all  Oxford  before  him — more  beautiful 
than  even  he  had  imagined.  The  horse's  hoofs 
struck  noiselessly  against  the  thick  carpet,  and  in 
this  high  and  swift  carriage  one  seemed  to  lose 
contact  with  earth  altogether.  They  passed  Wor- 
cester, its  trees  loaded,  its  scabrous  walls  softened 
and  made  white.  Even  Beaumont  Street  had  about 
it  an  unwonted  nobility,  like  a  colonnade  of  pale 
marble. 

How  bitter  the  wind  was,  and  how  pricelessly 
vigorous!  There  was  the  Martyrs'  Memorial — it 
was  high  time  that  he  decorated  it,  as  he  had 
promised  David  he  would,  with  a  bowler  hat.  He 
caught  sight  of  the  faces  of  Philip  Arden  and  young 
Ryerson,  wandering  past  St.  John's,  hatless  in  spite 
of  the  cold,  and  they  waved  him  a  cheery  welcome. 
From  Tugly's  high  rooms  in  Balliol  came  the  glow 
of  red-shaded  lights,  which  stained  to  a  delicate 


RETURN  TO  THE  ABNORMAL       275 

pink  the  snow  which  lay  crusted  on  the  ledge.  He 
must  go  and  see  him  soon.  What  a  lot  there  would 
be  to  do !  There  was  Whitely,  waving  to  him  under 
an  umbrella,  and  a  crowd  of  undergraduates  going 
into  the  Old  Oak  tea-rooms,  none  of  whom  he 
knew,  but  whom  he  saluted  out  of  sheer  exuberance 
of  spirit.  There  was  the  porter  in  Balliol  lodge, 
bowing  solemnly  from  behind  a  carmine  nose — 
Trinity,  a  marvellous  vision  of  silver  filigree — 
BlackwelPs,  full  of  the  most  exciting-looking  books. 
And  here  was  95,  The  Broad.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Griffiths  was  always  glad  to  see  him 
although  he  was  in  the  habit  of  playing  the  piano 
after  midnight. 

"Well,  Mr.  Sheldon,  I'm  sure  it's  very  nice  to 
see  you  again,"  she  said,  advancing  from  the 
kitchen. 

They  went  upstairs. 

"I've  put  you  in  a  new  bedroom,  Mr.  Sheldon, 
nearer  your  sitting-room.  I  thought  it  would  be 
more  cosy-like." 

It  was.  A  charming  little  room,  hung  with 
religious  prints.  Ordinarily  Ray  would  have  torn 
these  down,  but  he  decided  that  it  would  hurt  his 
landlady's  feelings.  Besides,  they  were  not  so 
aggressive  as  they  might  have  been. 

"I've  lit  the  fire  in  your  sitting-room.  Would 
you  like  some  tea?" 

"Thanks  very  much.     I  should." 


276  PATCHWORK 

After  he  had  drunk  some  tea,  so  warm  in  this 
wilderness  of  cold,  he  went  to  the  window  and 
looked  out.  He  wondered  for  a  moment  how  his 
mother  was  faring.  How  she  would  have  loved  all 
this  beauty!  The  coming  of  night  seemed  to  have 
been  unnaturally  delayed  by  the  brilliant  cloak  of 
snow  which  lay  over  the  whole  city.  The  Shel- 
donian  reflected  the  last  rays  of  light,  and  the  stone 
emperors  glistened  in  a  murky  radiance.  The 
noise  of  footsteps  was  almost  entirely  muffled, 
except  in  a  patch  by  a  rain-spout  where  the  snow 
had  melted  away.  And  still  the  flakes  came  down, 
and  the  grey  sky  was  full  of  silver,  curling  vapours. 

For  a  moment  he  felt  as  though  life  had  stopped. 
Looking  out  of  this  window  he  had  a  vivid  realisa- 
tion of  himself,  his  actual  surroundings,  the  joy  of 
them,  which  rarely  comes  till  one  has  ceased  to  live 
in  them.  The  feeling  that  he  had  experienced  in 
the  vac,  that  although  he  was  young,  he  did  not 
appreciate  his  youth,  was  now,  suddenly,  completely 
reversed.  He  appreciated  everything.  He  ap- 
preciated himself  as  though  he  had  stepped  outside 
his  own  body,  and  he  had  a  vision  of  his  figure 
by  the  window,  black  against  the  panes  and  the 
fluttering  grey  waste  beyond,  a  figure  of  youth,  to 
whom  all  desires  were  known  and  from  whom  no 
secrets  were  hid.  And  the  ecstasy  was  so  great 
that  when  after  a  few  seconds  it  had  passed,  he  was 
almost  glad  that  it  had  been  transient.    He  knew 


RETURN  TO  THE  ABNORMAL      277 

that  never  while  he  was  in  Oxford  would  he  under- 
stand Oxford.  He  knew  that  never  while  he  was 
living  would  he  understand  life. 

The  next  day  the  snow  had  ceased,  and  though 
all  the  roofs  were  white  and  virgin  the  roads  were 
soiled  and  churned  with  mud.  Ray  felt  that  he 
must  make  up  his  mind  definitely  as  to  how  this 
term  was  to  be  spent.  Otherwise  he  knew  that  he 
would  become  immersed  in  the  social  side  of  Oxford 
life,  and  would  fail  to  accomplish  anything.  How- 
ever, he  could  not  say  definitely  what  he  would  do 
till  he  had  looked  round. 

In  any  case,  there  would  be  no  great  need  to 
work.  He  negotiated  without  difficulty  the  "col- 
lecer"  with  which  it  was  the  habit  of  the  Balliol 
authorities  terminally  to  test  the  diligence  of  their 
undergraduates.  Indeed,  Tugly,  when  Ray  came 
to  have  his  papers  looked  over,  expressed  surprise 
that  he  should  have  done  so  well. 

"I  can't  think  when  you  get  your  work  done," 
he  said.  "You  really  seem  to  have  quite  a  decent 
knowledge  of  the  nineteenth  century." 

"I  did  a  good  deal  in  the  vac." 

"You  must  have  done."  Tugly  turned  over  his 
papers.    "Really,  they're  quite  sound." 

"What  a  beastly  word!" 

Tugly  laughed.  "I  should  have  thought  you'd 
have  been  pleased  to  be  called  sound  for  once,"  he 
said. 


27  8  PATCHWORK 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  It  doesn't  seem  to  be  the 
usual  adjective  for  you."  He  paused.  "But  what 
are  you  going  to  do  this  term?" 

They  discussed  Ray's  work. 

"Not  too  much,  Tugly." 

"Why?  I  don't  think  1789  to  1815  is  too  much 
for  one  term  if  you  don't  do  anything  else." 

"But  I  shall  be  doing  a  great  deal  else." 

"What,  for  instance?" 

"The  Union,  for  one  thing." 

"Why,  are  you  going  to  try  for  the  Presidency?" 

Ray  nodded. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  know  that,  Well,  I  hope  you 
get  it.  Only  as  your  tutor  it's  my  moral  duty  to  see 
you  do  your  work." 

During  the  next  week  Ray  allowed  himself  to 
drift.  He  had  a  last  letter  from  his  mother,  who 
was  about  to  depart  for  the  Riviera,  and  he  keenly 
wished  he  might  have  accompanied  her.  But  as  he 
was  in  Oxford,  it  was  pleasant  to  know  that  he  could 
do  as  he  liked,  and  to  be  free  from  the  feeling  that 
he  ought  at  every  moment  to  be  editing  some  paper, 
or  making  speeches  to  some  club. 

For  the  moment  he  was  inclined  to  rest  on  his 
laurels. 

For  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  it,  Oxford  was 
changing.    People  were  becoming   more  tolerant. 


RETURN  TO  THE  ABNORMAL      279 

It  was  possible  to  wear  corduroy  trousers  without 
being  considered  a  moral  degenerate.  It  was  pos- 
sible to  make  epigrams  at  the  Union  without  being 
regarded  as  pro-German.  It  was  possible  to  ask 
people  to  breakfast  at  half-past  ten  and  not  be 
thought  a  poseur.  One  could  even  forego  the 
discomfort  of  a  cold  bath  in  the  morning,  and  soak 
luxuriously  in  more  plentiful  hot  water  than  had 
been  either  physically  possible  or  ethically  approved 
in  the  rude  days  of  a  year  ago. 

It  would  have  been  hardly  human  if  Ray,  as 
he  contemplated  the  changing  spectacle  of  Oxford 
life,  did  not  feel  that  he  himself  had  done  far  more 
than  anybody  else  to  change  it.  Every  week  the 
'Varsity  papers  splashed  with  blue  and  yellow  the 
restless  streets,  and  it  seemed  that  even  in  The  his 
the  old  spirit  was  returning.  The  political  notes 
were  no  longer  written  in  that  spirit  of  stodgy 
conservatism  which  had  characterised  them  imme- 
diately the  paper  had  gone  out  of  his  hands.  In- 
stead there  was  a  renewed  attempt  at  the  delicate 
satire  which  he  had  achieved  so  well.  A  German 
was  referred  to  as  a  German  and  not  as  a  Hun,  and 
a  spade  was  happily  seldom  given  its  real  name. 
The  musical  reports  were  no  longer  written  with  a 
sublime  ignorance  of  any  works  but  those  of  Bach, 
while  from  the  criticisms  of  the  theatre  such  phrases 
as  "tuneful  music"  and  "sprightly  dancing" 
gradually  faded  away  until  they  were  mercifully  lost 


2  8o  PATCHWORK 

in  the  dark  recesses  of  the  Holywell  Press.  Even 
in  the  athletic  world  there  were  signs  of  regenera- 
tion. Blues  were  becoming  less  of  a  Prussian 
blue  and  were  assuming  once  more  the  old  Oxford 
colour.  And  there  was  talk  of  reviving  the 
Bullingdon. 

Ray  felt  that  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  he  had 
worked,  and  was  glad  to  think  that  he  might  now 
go  his  own  way  without  any  motive  of  propaganda. 
Crusades,  though  picturesque,  were  apt  to  be  tiring. 
However,  there  was  one  activity  which  he  was 
determined  not  to  relax — the  Union.  Indeed  as 
the  term  went  by  he  was  almost  surprised  to  find 
how  keen  he  was  becoming  to  realise  his  ambition 
in  this  direction.  The  Union  seemed  to  give  to 
his  career  a  unity  which,  while  it  was  not  aggressive, 
yet  served  to  place  in  a  certain  pleasurable  per- 
spective the  tangled  and  often  elusive  background 
against  which  he  had  been  moving.  He  began  to 
look  forward  to  Thursday  nights  more  than  any 
other  night  in  the  week.  Even  when  he  did  not 
himself  take  part  in  the  debate,  which  was  seldom, 
it  was  delightful  to  sit  in  the  secretary's  chair,  to 
read  in  a  sonorous  voice  the  "minutes"  which  he 
had  written  the  week  before,  and  to  feel  that  he 
was  in  the  centre  of  so  much  vigorous  life. 

Besides,  the  Union  seemed  to  open  up  a  stratum 
of  Oxford  society  which  he  had  hitherto  left  almost 
untouched.    He  had  associated  with  the  "Union 


RETURN  TO  THE  ABNORMAL      281 

crowd"  as  a  worker,  but  he  had  never  known  them 
as  friends.  He  had  gone  for  friendship  to  quite 
different  sets.  For  instance,  there  was  the  "House" 
set,  about  twenty  young  men  with  ample  incomes, 
who  spent  their  time  in  going  from  dinner-party  to 
dinner-party,  always  perfectly  dressed  and  always 
discussing  one  another.  When  they  needed  exercise 
they  would  ride,  and  when  they  needed  intellectual 
activity  they  played  bridge.  They  were  nearly  all 
Etonians,  and  had  nearly  all  been  with  Ray  in  the 
Brigade,  and  he  found  them  amusing  in  the  same 
way  that  he  found  London  amusing.  In  fact,  they 
seemed  to  bring  the  atmosphere  of  London  most 
unmistakably  into  their  own  very  luxurious  sitting- 
rooms.  Their  mantelpieces  were  always  crowded 
with  the  invitation  cards  of  London  hostesses,  and 
their  toilet  requisites  were  constantly  replenished 
from  Bond  Street. 

And  then  again  there  was  the  athletic  crowd, 
whom,  on  the  whole,  he  found  more  satisfying. 
Ray  occasionally  rowed  himself,  but  he  was  so 
extraordinarily  bad,  and  caught  crabs  with  such 
unhesitating  precision,  that  he  gave  up  the  attempt, 
and  confined  himself  to  meeting  the  rowing  Blues 
at  dinner,  where,  as  he  said,  they  made  such  a 
charming  colour  scheme,  with  their  pink  ties  and 
their  pinker  faces.  He  always  took  a  good  deal  of 
exercise  himself,  either  by  going  for  long  solitary 
"sweats"  over  Boar's  Hill,  or  by  hiring  an  execrable 


282  PATCHWORK 

mare  from  "Walley's"  and  clattering  wildly  out 
in  the  direction  of  Abingdon.  He  never  rode 
alone,  in  case  anything  went  wrong,  which  it  nearly 
invariably  did.  However,  he  took  his  falls  cheer- 
fully, and  so  did  his  companions.  Indeed  the 
"athletic  crowd,"  with  the  exception  of  people 
like  Berry  and  his  associates,  were  extraordinarily 
tolerant.  They  did  not  endeavour  to  impose  their 
own  opinions  on  Ray,  and  consequently  he  was 
scrupulous  that  he  should  not  in  any  way  adopt 
the  despicable  attitude  of  the  intellectual  sneering 
at  the  athlete.  Indeed,  he  was  inclined  rather  to 
envy  them.  For  he  was  an  extraordinarily  healthy 
person,  and  with  all  his  love  of  luxury  he  was 
thoroughly  unhappy  if  he  did  not  spend  a  good 
deal  of  his  time  under  the  open  sky,  and  he  some- 
times found  himself  wishing  that  he  could  feel  that 
all  the  cares  of  life  were  concentrated  in  a  football 
match,  and  that  one  could  mount  to  heaven  at  the 
end  of  a  pink  tie. 

The  "Union  crowd,"  however,  were  quite 
different.  Of  course  it  was  far  larger  than  anything 
else  in  Oxford,  and  indeed  seemed  to  be  a  little 
university  of  its  own.  Here  one  met  the  most 
astonishing  people — there  were  over  sixteen  hundred 
of  them,  and  they  were  all  quite  determined  to  be 
President.  Ferocious  Labour  men,  cynical  Tories, 
enlarged  and  restored  by  generous  dinners  at  the 
Conservative  Club,  and  every  description  of  Liberal. 


RETURN  TO  THE  ABNORMAL      283 

Indeed,  Liberalism  seemed  to  be  a  singularly  elastic 
faith,  ranging  from  the  coloured  and  decorative 
creed  of  a  Barroni  to  the  passionate  idealism  of  a 
Victor  Eyre,  a  charming  Welsh  boy  whom  Ray  had 
met  at  St.  John's.  Victor  Eyre  had  encouraged 
Ray,  more  than  any  one  else,  to  speak.  He  had 
come  up  to  him  at  the  end  of  his  first  speech,  and 
had  thanked  him  .with  such  a  profusion  of  Celtic 
eloquence,  that  Ray  had  felt,  for  the  moment,  em- 
barrassed. He  was,  however,  particularly  pleased, 
because  his  congratulator  proved  to  be  himself  a 
brilliant  speaker,  and  had  informed  him,  with 
courteous  naivete,  that  he  owed  his  eloquence  more 
to  Ray's  example  than  anything  else. 

Politics,  indeed,  which  to  Ray  had  been  merely  a 
means  of  making  his  own  life  more  vivid,  seemed  for 
many  people  at  Oxford  the  one  thing  worth  thinking 
about. 

"Do  you  think  you're  doing  the  right  thing  by 
being  a  Liberal?"  said  Whitely  to  him  one  day. 

"How  do  you  mean,  the  right  thing?"  replied 
Ray,  rather  indignantly.  "I'm  a  Liberal  as  regards 
industry,  Ireland,  India,  finance,  the  League 
of  .  .  ." 

Whitely  interrupted.  "I  don't  mean  that,"  he 
said.  "I  mean  as  regards  the  Union.  The  Con- 
servative Club's  pretty  big  now,  and  they're  much 
better  organised  than  the  Star." 

"I  know.    I  helped  them  to  get  going." 


284  PATCHWORK 

"What?"  Whitely  looked  at  him  in  astonish- 
ment. 

"I  don't  see  why  I  shouldn't.  I|m  much  more 
interested  in  Oxford,  as  a  whole,  than  in  the  Star 
Club." 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"Well,  the  more  clubs  there  are,  and  the  more 
people  discuss  things,  the  more  likely  we  are  to  get 
back  to  some  sort  of  pre-war  standard." 

"You'll  never  make  a  politician." 

"Why  not?" 

"Well,  you  ought  to  be  pulling  the  strings  all 
the  time." 

"I  am.  But  I  pull  them  all  at  the  same  time. 
And  the  result  is  charming." 

He  wondered,  vaguely,  if  there  was  any  truth 
in  what  Whitely  said.  Was  he  right  to  be  a 
Liberal,  or  would  he  offend  the  voters? 

He  cursed  himself  as  soon  as  this  question 
entered  his  mind.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  he 
knew  that  he  could  never,  with  any  conviction, 
be  anything  but  a  Liberal,  it  would  be  contemptible 
to  desert  a  faith  merely  because  it  was  down. 
Besides,  apart  from  all  other  considerations, 
Liberalism  in  the  university  was  a  very  living 
creed.  He  mentally  reviewed  the  result  of  some 
of  the  past  Union  debates,  which  were  a  pretty 
fair  index  to  the  way  the  average  undergraduate 
was  thinking.    During  the  last  few  months  they 


RETURN  TO  THE  ABNORMAL      285 

had  voted  by  an  overwhelming  majority  that  the 
Peace  Treaty  was  an  economic  disaster  to  Europe. 
They  had  "deplored" — (what  a  delightful  word 
that  was!) — the  foreign  policy  of  the  Government, 
and  had  demanded  the  substitution  for  it  of  the 
League  of  Nations.  They  had  carried  a  vote  in 
favour  of  a  capital  levy,  they  had  demanded  more 
self-government  for  India,  and  Dominion  Home 
Rule  for  Ireland.  Oh  yes,  Liberalism  was  all  right. 
The  one  conspicuous  occasion  when  the  Union  had 
approved  of  a  reactionary  motion  was  on  the  ques- 
tion of  divorce.  But  that,  after  all,  had  been  due, 
not  to  reasoning,  but  to  Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton, 
whose  delightful  but  irrelevant  arguments  persuaded 
a  hilarious  House  to  decide  joyfully  that  marriages 
of  lunatics  and  drunkards  must  be  maintained — 
in  order  that  the  integrity  of.  the  British  Empire 
might  remain  unimpaired. 

There  were  times  when  Ray  felt,  like  Mazzini, 
that  politics  were  in  themselves  a  form  of  poetry. 
He  had  done  so  much  at  Oxford.  What  was  to 
stop  him  now?     And  afterwards? 


CHAPTER  III 

IMPROMPTU 

64TWISH  term  didn't  go  so  quickly,"  said  Ray 

X  to  Steele  one  afternoon  towards  the  middle 
of  March. 

"I  know.  These  blasted  elections  are  due  in 
about  a  week." 

"I  wasn't  thinking  so  much  of  them.  I  was 
just  wishing  that  one  could  have  more  time  for  all 
the  things  there  are  to  do." 

"Lucky  brute  to  have  so  much  energy,"  muttered 
Steele. 

Ray  laughed.  Certainly  he  had  been  energetic 
enough  during  the  last  few  weeks.  He  had  made 
three  speeches  at  the  Union,  one  of  which  had  been 
a  failure,  and  the  other  two  brilliant  successes.  He 
had  just  managed  not  to  break  his  collar-bone  by 
falling  off  his  horse  on  to  a  railway  line,  and  had 
played  a  series  of  Scriabin  etudes  at  a  Balliol  concert 
the  next  night  with  his  head  bound  up  in  a  very 
becoming  bandage.  He  had  become  quite  unpar- 
donably  drunk  at  the  Grid,  and  had  been  fined  an 
extra  guinea  by  the  proctor  for  simulating  well-bred 
ignorance  of  the  location  of  Hertford  College.    He 

286 


IMPROMPTU  287 

had  assisted  in  a  raid  on  Trinity,  and  had  nearly 
been  permanently  disabled  by  falling  masonry. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  "I'm  becoming  most 
wonderfully  Philistine.  I  think  it's  always  so  con- 
soling to  think  that  David,  and  not  the  Philistine, 
had  the  jawbone  of  an  ass.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
though,  it's  not  Philistinism.  It's  just  animal 
spirits.  If  I'd  been  a  Philistine  I  should  have  been 
very  pleased  to  have  done  anything  so  hearty  as  to 
fall  over  a  railway  bridge,  and  should  have  probably 
longed  for  a  train  to  come  along  and  complete  the 
business.  As  it  was,  I  was  pleased,  but  merely 
because  my  head  was  bloodly — how  nice  to  be  able 
to  use  the  word  with  a  clear  conscience! — and  be- 
cause I'd  discovered  in  France  that  bandages  were 
rather  becoming." 

Steele  looked  at  him  curiously.  Ray  had  never 
mentioned  France  to  him  before.  It  was  a  promis- 
ing sign  that  he  found  himself  able  to  talk  of  it 
now. 

"Talking  of  France  .  .  ."  he  said. 

Ray  frowned.  "Don't,"  he  said.  "Sorry.  I 
started  it.  My  fault.  But  there  are  so  many  much 
nicer  things  to  talk  about.     Panton,  for  instance." 

Panton  was  Ray's  opponent  for  the  Presidency 
of  the  Union. 

"Has  he  definitely  decided  to  stand  against  you?" 

"Definitely  and  definitively.  In  fact,  I  believe 
nothing  so  definite  was  ever  seen  in  Oxford.     I 


288  PATCHWORK 

imagine  he  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  Conservative 
Club  and  announced  the  fact  to  all  the  blue-nosed 
Tories  in  a  bunch.  I  suppose  I  oughn't  to  speak 
disrespectfully  of  my  opponents,  but  still  .  .  ." 

"He's  very  sound,  you  know,"  said  Steele. 

"I  hate  sound  people.  Panton  is  far  too  sound. 
One  feels  he  knows  the  time  that  every  train  leaves 
for  anywhere,  and  none  of  the  reasons  for  taking 
them.  Nobody  has  any  business  to  be  sound  till 
they're  over  fifty.  Then  nobody  bothers  what  they 
are." 

"How  old  is  he,  by  the  way?" 

"He  must  be  at  least  thirty.  And  this  is  the 
third  time  he's  stood  for  the  Presidency.  And  he's 
married.  Personally  I  think  it's  positively  indecent. 
If  he  gets  in  I  shall  spread  a  rumour  that  his  elec- 
tion was  entirely  due  to  the  votes  of  his  children, 
who  increase  at  the  most  breathless  speed." 

Steele  laughed.  "You  are  incorrigible,  you  know. 
Yesterday  you  were  fearfully  depressed,  to-day 
you're  fearfully  hearty,  to-morrow  you'll  probably 
be  founding  another  club." 

Ray  lay  down  in  his  chair  and  stretched  out  his 
legs.    "I  like  being  hearty,"  he  said.    "I  like  .  .  ." 

"For  God's  sake  don't  start  that,"  said  Steele, 
throwing  a  cushion  at  him. 

Ray  sighed  and  went  to  the  piano.  "Suppose  I 
play  an  Oxford  impromptu?"  he  said. 

"Fire  away." 


IMPROMPTU  289 

Ray  put  down  the  pedal.  "There's  something 
fearfully  stimulating  about  putting  down  the  pedal. 
I  suppose  it's  the  sort  of  feeling  a  professional 
motorist — I  can't  think  of  the  right  word — gets 
when  he  pulls  out  the  clutch.  So  wonderful.  All 
sorts  of  echoing  noises  inside.  And  then  every 
note  sounds  so  swollen  and  important.  Listen. 
That's  A  flat.  We'll  call  it  Big  Tom  booming. 
Big  Tom  always  booms  in  A  flat  when  it's  behaving 
"itself.  What's  the  time?  Five!  Damn!  It'll 
have  to  be  in  five-four  time.  Never  mind. 
Tschaikowsky  wrote  a  most  lovely  movement  in 
the  Pathetic  Symphony  in  five-four  time." 

He  played  for  a  few  minutes,  and  explained  his 
improvisation  as  he  went  along.  "You  know,  this 
is  really  an  extraordinarily  good  way  of  working  off 
one's  surplus  emotions.  This  fat,  greasy  tune  is 
Panton  making  a  speech.  The  basis  of  it  is  'Lead 
thou  me  on,'  and  after  that,  'I  didn't  want  to  do 
it.'  No — that's  horrible.  I  shall  do  myself  making 
a  speech  instead." 

He  played  a  recitative  in  octaves  with  his  right 
hand.  "That's  the  argument,  you  see.  Now  come 
the  epigrams."  A  brilliant  shower  of  arpeggios 
sparkled  momentarily  in  the  treble. 

"And  now  the  applause,"  suggested  Steele. 

A  magnificent  chorale  echoed  through  the  room, 
and  died  away. 

"Of  course,"  said  Ray,  "I  am  a  genius." 


290  PATCHWORK 

"I  never  said  you  weren't,"  laughed  Steele. 

"If  you  had  done,  it  would  have  meant  some- 
thing else.  Anyway,  I'm  going  on  playing.  What 
shall  I  play?" 

"I'm  afraid  it's  no  use  asking  me." 

"I  know.  Oxford  in  general.  No,  that's  too 
difficult.  We  might  start  with  the  Isis  though. 
Listen — all  that  running  about  in  the  bass  is  the 
river — rushing  very  strong.  It  never  does,  but 
that  doesn't  matter.  And  now  the  chiming  of 
bells.  .  .  ." 

Against  the  turbulent  bass  he  played  a  little 
ripple  of  silver  sixths,  constantly  repeated  and  con- 
stantly varied.  Then  a  pause:  "This  is  fearfully 
dramatic,"  whispered  Ray.  "It's  our  entry  into 
Oxford." 

He  played  a  tiny,  halting  tune  in  the  bass,  and 
all  the  time  there  was  the  silver  echo  of  bells  in 
the  treble.  Gradually  the  volume  of  sound  in- 
creased, melodies  flitted  irregularly  and  brilliantly 
across  the  main  theme,  and  died  away,  and  finally 
the  little  tune  which  had  walked  so  apologetically 
across  the  black  notes  at  the  bottom  of  the  piano 
burst  into  a  vast  chorus,  into  which  every  ounce 
of  his  energy  seemed  to  be  poured. 

He  stopped,  and  shut  the  piano  with  a  bang. 

"Good  Lord!"  said  Steele. 

Ray  looked  at  him  and  laughed.  "That's  really 
much  the  best  thing  you  could  have  said." 


IMPROMPTU  291 

"It  was  quite  extraordinary.  Aren't  you  fear- 
fully tired?" 

"Certainly  not.  I'm  never  tired  when  I've  done 
something  decent.  It's  when  I've  done  nothing  that 
I'm  tired."  He  paused.  "As  a  matter  of  fact, 
though,  I  suppose  that  was  nothing  really.  Nothing 
permanent.  Just  a  wonderful  improvisation. 
That's  what  my  whole  life  is — an  improvisation." 

"Some  improvisations  are  greater  than  the  other 
thing,"  said  Steele. 

"No,  they  aren't.  And  for  the  simple  reason 
that  they're  entirely  selfish." 

"All  art  is  selfish." 

"Directly,  yes.  No  artist  thinks  of  anything 
but  himself  when  he's  creating.  But  if  he  creates 
something  permanent  the  result  is  the  same — he 
benefits  the  whole  world." 

Steele  nodded.  "D'you  think  either  of  us  will 
ever  benefit  the  whole  world?"  he  said,  after  a 
pause. 

"We  shall  either  benefit  the  whole  world  or  we 
shan't  benefit  anybody.  I  should  hate  to  be  any- 
thing but  international.  I  feel  that  England,  or 
Europe,  or  Asia,  is  much  too  small  a  public." 

Steele  laughed.  "And  yet  you  speak  to  a  few 
hundreds  at  the  Union." 

"Don't  be  sarcastic.  Besides,  that's  quite  dif- 
ferent.    We're  only  infants  at  present." 

"Well,  when  are  you  going  to  start?" 


292  PATCHWORK 

Ray  looked  out  of  the  window.  "I  don't  know. 
I'm  afraid  the  next  year  or  so  is  going  to  be  rather 
difficult.  By  the  way,  d'you  think  I  shall  get  this 
Union  thing?" 

"Certainly." 

"No,  but  really,  do  you?" 

"Yes,  I  do." 

"Why?" 

"Well,  you're  much  the  best  speaker  of  any 
of  us,  and  you're  extremely  popular  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing.  The  only  thing  I  can  think  of  in 
favour  of  the  other  chap  is  that  he's  stood  twice 
before,  and  people  are  apt  to  vote  for  a  man  just 
out  of  pity.  And  also  he's  got  the  official  nomina- 
tion, since  he's  senior  to  you,  so  that  means  his 
name  goes  before  yours  on  the  ballot  paper." 

"I  see." 

"If  anything  did  go  wrong,  would  you  stand 
again?" 

"I  don't  know.  It  seems  rather  bathos, 
doesn't  it?" 

"Yes.     But  still,  I  should,  if  I  were  you." 

"Anyway,  let's  hope  that  there  won't  be  any 
need.     And  in  any  case,  I'm  happy  enough  now." 

Indeed,  so  happy  was  he,  and  so  immersed  in 
innumerable  activities,  that  it  was  not  without  a 
shock  that  he  saw  a  letter  from  his  mother  the  next 


IMPROMPTU  293 

morning,  decorated  with  the  French  stamp.  He 
had  almost  forgotten  that  she  was  in  France  at  all. 
With  a  pang  of  remorse,  he  opened  it. 

"Villa  Pontilly,  Cannes. 

"14.3.20. 
"Dearest  Ray, 

"How  are  you  now?  I  do  hope  you  are  well. 
It  seems  so  dreadful  to  be  so  far  away,  and  I'm 
afraid  I  was  very  depressing  on  the  last  day. 
Please  forgive  me. 

"It  is  very  beautiful  down  here — so  warm,  and 
so  many  flowers.  Even  the  wisteria  is  out  under 
my  window,  and  by  lunch-time  it  is  really  quite 
overpowering — the  scent,  I  mean.  The  house  is 
absolutely  as  I  left  it,  three  years  ago.  Even  some 
of  the  cigarettes  which  you  smoked  when  you  came 
down  on  leave — do  you  remember? — are  still  in 
their  little  cases.  And  Maria  seems  so  glad  to  see 
me — she  and  Tonio  came  running  down  the  drive 
and  both  of  them  wept  a  great  deal,  and  spoke 
French-Italian  so  quickly  that  I  could  think  of 
nothing  to  say  at  all  in  return,  and  wept  too.  I 
think  it  was  so  nice  of  them. 

"I  tried  to  play  the  piano  yesterday,  but  it  was 
dreadfully  out  of  tune,  so  I  sent  into  Cannes  for 
a  man  to  tune  it,  and  he  has  been  making  noises  all 
day,  and  is  now  playing  the  Marseillaise,  so  I  feel  I 
ought  to  stand  up.  I  want  to  have  everything  as 
you  would  like  it  when  you  come  here. 


294  PATCHWORK 

"You  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  I  have  asked 
Helen  to  come  down  and  stay.  She  ought  to  arrive 
the  day  after  to-morrow.  I  will  send  her  away 
before  you  come  back,  because  I  know  she  irritates 
you  so.  But  with  me,  she  always  behaves  so  dif- 
ferently, and  I  am  rather  sorry  for  her.  We  seem 
to  be  the  only  relations  she  has  in  the  world.  Be- 
sides, from  my  own  quite  selfish  point  of  view  it 
,  is  rather  nice  to  have  some  one  to  talk  to  apart  from 
Maria  and  Tonio.  And  the  people  round  here  seem 
dreadfully  dull. 

"I  saw  M.  Montfort  yesterday — the  doctor,  you 
know — and  he  says  that  I  am  looking  much  better, 
but  that  I  was  very  wise  to  come  out  here. 

"I  won't  bother  you  with  any  more.  All  my 
love  for  ever  and  ever. 

"Mother. 

"P.S. — I  do  hope  you  will  win  your  Union 
election." 

Ray  smiled  as  he  read  this  quaint  epistle.  He 
hoped  sincerely  that  she  was  not  too  lonely.  By 
the  same  post  came  a  letter  from  Helen,  who  had 
evidently  already  arrived  at  Cannes.  It  was  very 
brief. 

"Dear  Ray, 

"I  have  only  just  come  here,  so  haven't  time 
for  a  long  letter. 

"I  just  want  to  remind  you  about  the  Gladstonian 
collars.     I'm  sure  they  wouldn't  suit  you. 


IMPROMPTU  295 

"Mother  seems  very  happy,  but  I  think  she  looks 
rather  washed  out.  The  doctor  thinks  so  too. 
However,  I'll  let  you  know  more  in  future.  Do 
write  a  lot  and  cheer  her  up. 

"Helen." 

Ray  frowned  and  threw  the  letter  into  the  waste- 
paper  basket.  Why  did  Helen  always  irritate  him 
so?  And  he  felt  sure  that  she  was  wrong  about 
his  mother.  She  had  said  that  the  doctor  thought 
she  was  looking  very  well,  and  he  would  certainly 
take  her  word  against  Helen's. 

However,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  a  long  letter 
saying  that  if  he  was  wanted  he  could  always  come 
down  to  Cannes  at  a  day's  notice,  and  his  conscience 
was  perceptibly  soothed. 

Meanwhile  life  was  horribly  amusing,  and  so 
busy  was  he  in  preparing  for  the  final  campaign 
that  he  had  little  time  for  reflection.  There  were 
dozens  of  people  to  ask  to  dinner,  dozens  of  speeches 
to  make,  including  his  final  speech  at  the  Union. 
He  was  living,  living  at  top  speed,  and  that  was  all 
that  seemed  to  matter. 


CHAPTER  IV 


CLIMAX 


POLLING  at  the  Union  was  on  Saturday  and 
Monday,  and  during  the  entire  week-end  the 
candidates  for  election  tirelessly  traversed  Oxford 
with  fixed  smiles  on  their  faces  for  all  and  sundry. 
Never  before  had  they  evinced  such  amiability,  nor 
such  generosity  in  standing  drinks.  Panton  was  to 
be  seen  in  every  variety  of  costume  at  all  hours  of 
the  day  and  night,  dressed  to  appeal  to  the  audience 
he  desired  to  captivate.  Tommy  Quill  traversed 
Beaumont  Street  with  hordes  of  Indians,  dropping 
the  subtlest  of  hints  in  the  most  honeyed  tones. 
Whitely  relaxed  the  usual  grim  cast  of  his  features 
and  smiled  a  smile  which,  though  undoubtedly 
powerful  and  apparently  permanent,  caused  the 
facetious  to  inquire  if  he  had  stepped  in  something. 
Barroni  showered  epigrams  on  every  one  with  whom 
he  came  in  contact,  giving  his  views  as  to  why 
certain  people  should  be  elected  and  giving  them 
with  such  brilliance  that  his  listeners  immediately 
went  and  voted  for  some  one  else. 

Ray   would   have    found   it   delightful    to   hurl 
himself  into  the  thick  of  the  fight,  and  intrigue 

296 


CLIMAX  297 

with  the  best  of  them,  but  apart  from  the  fact  that 
it  was  rather  dangerous,  since  canvassing  was 
strictly  illegal,  he  preferred  to  allow  things  to  take 
their  own  course.  If  he  was  elected,  he  would  have 
hated  to  feel  that  he  had  got  in  by  any  system  of 
intrigue.  Besides,  his  speech  at  the  Union  last 
Thursday  had  been  so  great  a  success  that  he  felt 
intrigue  was  not  necessary.  And  in  any  case  it  was 
amusing  to  watch  the  contest  as  a  spectator. 

Meanwhile,  during  this  week-end  it  was  quite 
impossible  to  think  of  doing  any  work.  He  began 
to  wish  the  whole  thing  was  over.  It  seemed 
almost  impossible  even  to  eat.  By  the  time  that 
Monday  morning  came  he  was  wandering  round  his 
room,  picking  up  books  and  putting  them  down 
again,  playing  a  few  chords  on  the  piano  and 
stopping,  pouring  out  whiskey  and  throwing  it  away. 
Finally  he  found  that  the  only  thing  to  do  was  to 
stare  out  of  the  window  at  the  crowds  in  the  street 
below.  It  was  a  great  relief  when  Steele  came  in 
with  Philip  Arden. 

"Well,  Ray,  we've  been  canvassing,"  said  Philip, 
throwing  down  his  coat. 

"Have   you    really?     How   are   things    going?" 

"Oh,  you're  both  in  all  right." 

Ray  looked  at  him  eagerly.  "Do  you  really  think 
so?" 

"Of  course  I  do.  Otherwise  I  shouldn't  be 
here." 


298  PATCHWORK 

He  sat  down  in  front  of  the  fire,  and  put  his 
feet  on  the  mantelpiece.  "Oh  Lord,  it  has  been 
funny." 

"Funny?" 

"Rather." 

"You  wouldn't  think  it  was  so  funny  if  you  were 
one  of  the  candidates/'  said  Steele. 

"Sorry.  Suppose  I  shouldn't.  But  I  had  a 
damned  amusing  time  after  breakfast." 

"How?" 

"Well,  I  was  sitting  in  my  rooms,  and  an 
enormous  deputation  arrived." 

"What  sort  of  deputation?" 

"Oh,  a  lot  of  impossible  bounders  from  Magdalen 
and  other  out-of-the-way  places." 

"Well?" 

"And  they  were  all  canvassing,  canvassing  like 
hell." 

"Who  for?" 

"The  other  fellow,  of  course." 

Ray  sighed.     "This  is  too  awful." 

"Wait  a  minute,  though.  They  told  me  the 
various  reasons  I  should  vote  for  Panton,  and  I 
listened  very  attentively,  and  kept  them  there  about 
an  hour,,  or  nearly  that,  at  any  rate.  And  then  in 
the  end  I  said  certainly  I  should  vote  for  Panton  if  I 
had  a  vote.  But  unfortunately  I  wasn't  a  member 
of  the  Union." 


CLIMAX  299 

He  lay  back  and  roared  with  laughter,  and  Ray 
could  not  help  joining  in. 

"And  the  silly  part  of  the  whole  thing,"  said 
Philip,  lighting  his  pipe,  "is  that  I'm  not.  And 
consequently  I  can't  vote  for  you." 

"Never  mind,  old  thing.  You  would  if  you 
could."     Ray  looked  at  him  affectionately. 

"Yes,  I  would.  And  anyway,  I've  got  simply 
hundreds  of  people  in  Balliol  to  vote.  Oh,  you'll  be 
all  right.  And  Steele  too.  I  shouldn't  worry. 
What  are  you  doing  for  the  rest  of  the  day?" 

"God  knows." 

"Blasphemous  child." 

"It  isn't  blasphemous  to  attribute  omniscience  to 
the  deity." 

Philip  smiled.  "Have  it  your  own  way,"  he 
said.  "Only  if  I  were  you  I  should  get  away  from 
all  this,  and  go  and  trot  round  Boar's  Hill." 

Ray  looked  out  of  the  window. 

"It'll  probably  pour  with  rain  before  long." 

"Never  mind.     It'll  do  you  good." 

Ray  paused.    "What  d'you  say,  Steele?" 

"It  might  be  rather  a  good  idea.  Anyway,  I'm 
sick  of  this  waiting  business." 

"Well,  you'd  better  lunch  with  me  here  first,  and 
Philip  too." 

"Thanks  awfully." 

He  rang  the  bell  and  ordered  lunch.    There  was 


3oo  PATCHWORK 

something  particularly  gratifying  about  food  on  this 
occasion. 

"I  think  I  shall  write  an  essay  one  day,  on  food 
as  a  curer  of  souls." 

"Yes,  do,"  said  Philip,  with  his  mouth  full. 

"It  shall  be  called  'Gastronomy  versus  Astron- 
omy,' and  it  shall  be  all  about  the  milky  way.  One 
might  make  some  rather  good  jokes  about  it — for 
instance,  soles  stewed  in  milk  versus  souls  immersed 
in  the  milky  way." 

He  talked  at  random,  ridiculous  and  child-like 
prattle.  He  felt  capable  of  nothing  else  just  then. 
Steele  was  practically  silent. 

Suddenly  he  was  struck  with  an  idea. 

"I  say,"  he  said  to  Steele.  "Supposing  we  get 
in,  let's  have  a  simply  colossal  dinner  here  to-mor- 
row." 

"Now  you're  talking,"  said  Philip. 

Steele  frowned.    "And  supposing  we  don't?" 

"Have  a  still  more  colossal  one." 

Steele  laughed.  "Yes,  it  would  be  rather  an 
idea." 

"It  certainly  would,"  said  Ray.  "I've  got  a  lot 
of  pink  champagne,  and  it's  got  to  be  drunk  soon. 
Look  here,  Philip,  you  might  arrange  it  for  us. 
Will  you?" 

"All  right." 

"Thanks  most  awfully.  Well,  who  had  we  bet- 
ter have?" 


CLIMAX  301 

They  ran  through  a  list  of  names  and  finally  Ray 
wrote  down  about  a  dozen  on  a  slip  of  paper. 

"They  probably  won't  all  be  able  to  come,  but 
we  can  always  get  some  one  else.  And  whatever 
happens,  it  ought  to  be  rather  amusing.  To-mor- 
row would  be  most  horribly  flat  without  something 
to  wake  us  up." 

"I  know." 

Philip  finished  his  coffee  and  got  up  to  go. 

"By  the  way,"  he  said,  "I  suppose  you've  voted 
yourself?" 

"Good  Lord,  no,"  replied  Ray.  "I  didn't  know 
you  could.    Have  you?"    He  turned  to  Steele. 

"Rather." 

"What  a  fool  I  am!  I'd  better  go  now.  And 
then  we  can  get  a  taxi  to  Boar's  Hill." 

They  went  out  into  Broad  Street.  It  was  about 
half-past  two,  and  somehow  the  roads  seemed 
strangely  quiet.  The  usual  athletes  flashed  by  in 
blue  and  pink,  and  there  was  already  a  sprinkling 
of  undergraduates  in  the  bookshops,  but  over  the 
whole  city  there  had  desended  a  curious  quiescence. 
Even  the  Union  seemed  deserted  except  for  a  little 
group  of  voters.  Ray  went  in  and  registered  his 
vote,  and  glanced  furtively  at  two  diminutive  fresh- 
men who  were  putting  their  mark  on  the  folded  slip 
of  paper.  One  voted  for  Panton,  the  other  for 
himself.  He  sighed  and  gave  the  paper  to  the  in- 
vigilator. 


302  PATCHWORK 

As  they  came  out  they  caught  sight  of  Panton 
just  entering  the  Union.  Ray  fled  precipitously 
into  the  street. 

"And  now  let's  get  a  taxi." 

Philip  laughed.  "I  thought  you  were  going  for 
a  walk." 

"We  are.  But  I  don't  want  to  have  to  trudge 
miles  through  a  wretched  suburb  and  be  tired  out 
before  I  get  to  Boar's  Hill.     Come  on.  .  .  ." 

"Well,  I'll  say  good-bye  for  the  present,  and  get 
on  with  the  good  work." 

"All  right.  And  a  thousand  thanks  for  all 
you've  done.  You  can  have  an  extra  bottle  of 
pink  champagne  to-morrow." 

"Cheerio." 

As  the  car,  which  was  a  very  old  and  remarkably 
uncomfortable  Ford,  clattered  out  of  the  narrow 
streets,  Ray  lay  back  and  closed  his  eyes. 

"Tired?" 

He  nodded. 

"Yes,  I  am  rather." 

The  cold  wind  blew  on  his  hot  forehead.  It  was 
wonderfully  refreshing.  He  felt  it  would  be  de- 
lightful to  travel  like  this  for  ever,  always  through 
bare  and  winding  lanes,  with  an  eternal  patchwork 
of  meadows  moving  slowly  and  grandly  by. 

"I  really  seem  suddenly  to  have  lost  all  interest 
in  the  thing,"  said  Steele,  and  he  too  closed  his 
eyes. 


CLIMAX  303 

"I  know.  So  do  I."  Ray  raised  himself  slightly. 
"My  God,  though,  I  haven't  lost  interest  in  that." 
He  turned  to  Steele.     "Do  look  a  minute." 

They  were  reaching  the  crest  of  the  hill,  and  all 
the  county  lay  before  them.  Berkshire  stretched 
away  to  the  left,  a  medley  of  hills  and  meadows, 
unnaturally  distinct  under  an  indigo  sky.  And  be- 
low, in  the  valley,  was  Oxford. 

Steele  turned  away.  "I  don't  want  to  think  of 
Oxford  just  now,"  he  said. 

They  got  out  and  watched  the  car  spin  slowly 
down  the  hill. 

"I  feel  as  I  were  never  going  to  see  Oxford 
again,"  said  Steele,  as  they  went  on  their  way. 

"I  know.  That's  the  effect  nature  always  has 
on  me." 

"How?" 

Ray  swung  his  stick  in  the  air  and  caught  it 
again.  "Oh,  I  don't  know.  A  sort  of  proud  de- 
tachment from  everything." 

Steele  nodded.  "Somehow  the  idea  of  the  Union 
just  now  seems  incredibly  remote." 

"Incredibly." 

"And  absurdly  unimportant." 

"Yes.  But  it  isn't  because  it's  the  Union.  It's 
merely  because  it  happens  to  be  an  ordinary  human 
activity.  It  would  be  exactly  the  same  if  you  were 
standing — well,  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States.    As  soon  as  you  get  out  under  the  open  sky, 


3o4  PATCHWORK 

with  big  clouds  above  you,  and  hills  and  grass,  and 
trees,  and  things  like  that — well,  I  mean,  there's 
nothing  to  do  but  laugh." 

Steele  smiled. 

Ray  went  on.  The  rising  wind  seemed  to  give 
him  new  energy.  They  were  now  walking  by  the 
side  of  a  wood  and  he  had  to  raise  his  voice  to  make 
himself  heard  above  the  clamour  of  the  branches. 

"Nature,"  he  said,  "takes  away  all  my  ambition. 
And  it  takes  it  away  because  it  shows  me,  really, 
that  I,  and  anybody  else,  is  far  too  great  for  any 
ambition  to  be  worth  while.  Under  the  sky,  what 
does  anything  matter?  What  can  you  do?  Or 
rather,  what  can't  you  do?  Just  think,  now,  of 
arguing  and  making  speeches.  Think  of  all  the 
absurd  intrigue — think  of  Panton.  What  is  Pan- 
ton?  A  tiny  absurd  little  shadow,  about  an  inch 
of  that  cloud  over  there.  .  .  ." 

"Which,  by  the  way,  is  about  to  descend  on  our 
heads  in  the  shape  of  rain,"  added  Steele. 

"Never  mind.  Let  it  come,  it'll  do  us  good. 
We  want  rain — lots  of  rain.  Why  didn't  I  come 
out  here  before?  I  don't  care  what  happens  now. 
What  is  Oxford?  Dreams — all  dreams!  Damn! 
Tell  me  to  stop  sentimentalising  or  I  shall  get  wet." 

They  took  refuge  in  the  entrance  to  a  little  empty 
hut  that  the  shepherds  had  once  lived  in.  What  a 
storm  it  was!  Great  billows  of  wind,  each  with 
its  burden  of  slashing  rain.     From  where  they  were 


CLIMAX  305 

standing  one  could  see  across  the  valley,  over  the 
drenched  and  desolate  fields,  to  where  Oxford  lay, 
dull,  grey,  and  clustering  closely,  as  though  it  were 
frightened  of  the  black  clouds  that  swept  so  ar- 
rogantly over  the  city.  In  a  few  of  the  colleges 
they  were  lighting  up,  and  the  tiny  sparks  made 
even  more  gloomy  the  closely  grouped  towers  and 
huddled  domes,  while  a  solitary  flash  of  sunlight, 
which  had  somehow  come  through  a  quickly  closing 
gap  in  the  clouds,  struck  with  an  unearthly  radi- 
ance on  the  dwarfed  roof  of  the  Sheldonian. 

Ray  felt  encompassed  with  a  spirit  akin  to  trage- 
dy. Here  where  he  stood,  with  Steele  by  his  side, 
there  was  no  sound  except  the  sweep  of  grasses  at 
his  feet,  and  the  bluff  roaring  of  the  wind  as  it 
struck  the  walls  of  the  deserted  barn.  Nothing 
but  the  drip,  drip  of  the  rain  from  the  eaves  and 
the  menace  of  thunder  over  the  hills.  But  there  in 
that  black  city  was  being  fought  out  the  first  battle 
of  his  life.  Here,  in  a  way,  seemed  the  closing 
time  of  his  youth.  He  shivered,  and  turned  to 
Steele. 

"Give  me  a  cigarette,  old  man,  or  I  shall  become 
abominably  gloomy." 

Steele  gave  him  his  case,  and  for  some  time  Ray 
smoked  in  silence. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said  eventually,  "that  whatever 
life  one  has  led  one  always  feels  that  it  has  been 
the  wrong  one." 


3o6  PATCHWORK 

Steele  nodded. 

"I  mean,  when  I  look  out  at  that  place,"  he 
pointed  to  Oxford,  darkling  and  rain-swept,  "I  feel 
that  all  my  time  there  has  been  wasted." 

"Why?" 

"I  really  hardly  know.  I  merely  feel  that  every- 
thing I've  done  or  tried  to  do  was  so  extraordinarily 
rotten.  It  was  just  writing  on  the  sand,  really. 
I've  been  building  up  a  sort  of  artificial  Me  for 
other  people.  .  .  ."  He  whistled  mournfully. 
"D'you  remember  that  verse — Sorley — he  was  a 
friend  of  mine;  they  killed  him  in  the  war — 

"I  have  a  temple  I  do  not 
Visit,  a  heart  I  have  forgot, 
A  self  that  I  have  never  met, 
A  secret  shrine — and  yet,  and  yet.  .  .  ." 

He  paused. 

"And  yet?"  Steele  repeated. 

Ray  laughed  shortly.  "That's  the  whole  point. 
The  poem  goes  on  to  say  that  really  it's  all  right. 
I  forget  the  exact  words,  something  about  'This 
sanctuary  of  my  soul,  unwitting  I  keep  white  and 
whole.'     But  with  me  it's  all  wrong." 

"No,  it  isn't." 

"Yes,  it  is.  Why  does  one  always  feel  a  prig  if 
you  mention  the  word  soul?  Anyway,  I'm  damned 
certain  I  don't  keep  mine  white  and  whole.  I'm 
not  sure  that  I  even  want  to.     An  all-white  soul 


CLIMAX  307 

sounds  rather  boring."  He  laughed  unwillingly. 
"But  that  wasn't  what  I  meant.  I've  been  so  ex- 
cited lately  that  I  can't  think  straight.  What  I 
mean  is  this.  That  whereas  with  Sorley  he  was 
speaking  the  truth,  I  should  be  telling  lies  if  I  said 
the  same  thing.  I  felt  when  I  came  out  here  a  sort 
of  exaltation,  just  to  be  in  the  wind  and  the  rain. 
I  really  did  feel  for  a  minute  a  sort  of — well,  it  was 
really  a  sort  of  divinity." 

"I  know." 

"But  it's  all  the  most  bloody  hypocrisy.  I  know 
that  as  soon  as  I  get  back  to  Oxford  I  shall  go  on 
in  the  same  way.  I  shall  run  about,  and  advertise, 
and  play  the  fool,  and  try  to  be  brilliant.  And 
probably  delude  myself  into  the  idea  that  I  really 
am  being " 

He  paused  again.    "Has  it  stopped  raining?" 

Steele  shook  his  head,  and  Ray  turned  to  him, 
"I  envy  you  most  awfully,"  he  said. 

"Me?     Good  Lord,  why?" 

Ray  threw  away  his  cigarette. 

"Well,  because  you  aren't  just  an  echo." 

"Neither  are  you." 

"Yes,  I  am.  And  I'm  a  false  echo,  too.  I  mean, 
whatever  society  I'm  in  I  seem  to  feel  I  want  to  be 
in  for  ever.  If  I'm  in  the  Union  I  feel  the  only 
thing  to  be  is  a  politician.  If  I'm  in  the  Musical 
Club  I  never  want  to  do  anything  but  play  the 
piano.     If  I'm  writing  an  article  I  feel  as  though  I 


3o8  PATCHWORK 

wanted  to  edit  every  paper  in  the  world.  If  I'm 
in  the  theatre  I  want  to  go  on  the  stage.  And  now 
I'm  out  here  I  want  to  stay  out  here  for  ever,  and 
keep  sheep,  and  get  wet  every  day  with  the  rain, 
and  listen  to  the  wind.  .  .  ." 

He  laughed  and  took  Steele's  arm. 

"What  rot  I'm  talking!  It's  a  damned  shame  to 
expect  you  to  listen  to  me.  Look  here,  it's  nearly 
stopped  now." 

They  came  out  of  the  little  barn  where  they  had 
been  sheltering.  It  was  bitterly  cold,  and  there  was 
an  almost  fierce  purity  in  the  air.  The  whole  earth 
seemed  purged  by  this  triumphant  wind. 

"It's  growing  dark,"  said  Steele;  "we'd  better 
trot  along  to  Abingdon." 

They  walked  quickly  across  the  field,  past  the 
wood,  its  branches  still  clamouring  in  the  aftermath 
of  the  storm,  and  down  a  long  curving  road  which 
led  to  the  little  village.  All  the  lamps  were  lit  as 
they  turned  into  the  main  street,  and  through  the 
open  door  of  the  inn  came  out  a  pleasant  blaze  from 
the  log  fire  inside. 

They  went  in  and  ordered  tea  and  eggs.  Ray 
felt  ravenously  hungry,  and  left  all  the  talking  to 
Steele.  Oxford  still  seemed  incredibly  remote,  and 
the  idea  of  having  to  go  back  along  those  cold  wet 
roads  was  not  at  all  attractive. 

He  ordered  some  more  eggs,  and  when  they  were 


CLIMAX  309 

consumed  he  leant  back  in  his  big  wooden  chair 
and  watched  the  fire  through  half-closed  eyes.  It 
was  raining  again  outside,  and  from  time  to  time  the 
sudden  hissing  of  the  logs  indicated  that  the  rain 
had  found  its  way  down  the  chimney,  which  was 
very  wide  and  old. 

It  was  not  till  nearly  six  that  Steele  roused  him 
from  the  doze  into  which  he  had  fallen. 

"Come  on,  old  chap,"  he  said.  "We  shall  have 
to  go." 

Ray  rubbed  his  eyes.  "Oh  Lord,  in  all  this 
rain?" 

Steele  nodded.  "Yes,  but  I've  managed  to  get 
a  sort  of  cab  to  go  in." 

"Have  you  really?  Thank  God."  He  got  up 
and  gave  a  final  warm  to  his  still  wet  shoes.  He 
felt  stiff  all  over,  and  was  inclined  to  shiver. 

The  drive  home  was  uneventful.  Ray  snuggled 
up  in  a  rug  and  tried  to  go  to  sleep,  but  all  the 
time  he  was  conscious  of  the  rain  beating  inter- 
mittently on  the  windows,  and  as  they  drew  near 
to  Oxford  he  began  again  to  remember  that  in  an 
hour  or  so  he  would  know  the  result  of  the  election. 

"Are  you  going  to  hear  the  names  read  out?" 
he  said  to  Steele,  as  he  got  out  at  Broad  Street. 

"I  probably  shall,"  he  replied.  "Shall  I  come 
round  and  let  you  know?" 

"Yes,  do." 


3io  PATCHWORK 

"Let's  see,  it's  half-past  seven  now.  I  expect 
I'll  be  round  in  about  an  hour.  And  have  some 
champagne  ready." 

Ray  laughed.     "Very  well." 

He  walked  slowly  upstairs.  It  was  gratifying 
to  see  that  Mrs.  Griffiths  had  kept  his  fire  in.  It 
was  most  horribly  cold. 

He  sat  down  in  front  of  the  fire.  Somehow 
the  room  looked  strangely  unfamiliar.  He  might 
have  been  away  for  months.  This  little  expedition 
to  Boar's  Hill  seemed  to  have  given  him  a  sudden 
sense  of  detachment  from  Oxford  and  all  his 
Oxford  activities.  For  a  moment  he  felt  almost 
uninterested  in  the  Union. 

However,  he  really  must  wake  up.  In  half  an 
hour  he  would  have  to  be  thoroughly  awake,  he 
might  even  have  to  make  a  speech  in  answer  to 
congratulations.  Damn.  It  was  very  tiresome  to 
be  forced  back  so  suddenly  into  the  life  which  for 
the  moment  he  had  thrown  aside.  It  would  have 
been  far  more  pleasant  to  go  straight  to  bed  with 
the  echo  of  the  wind  still  in  his  ears,  to  go  to  bed 
and  dream  of  darkening  hills  and  great  clouds,  and 
rain  .  .  .  big,  fresh  things — how  infinitely  prefer- 
able they  seemed  to  all  this  absurd  intrigue. 

He  went  to  the  sideboard,  and  opened,  after  a 
great  deal  of  effort,  a  bottle  of  champagne,  and 
drank  a  glass  gratefully.    Ah,  that  was  better.    It 


CLIMAX  3 1 1 

was  wonderfully  refreshing.  The  bubbles  seemed 
to  get  inside  him  and  lift  him  up  by  a  graceful 
transition,  above  the  somewhat  comatose  condition 
in  which  he  found  himself. 

He  sat  down  again  and  waited.  The  tiny  bronze 
clock  over  the  mantelpiece  struck  half-past  eight. 
He  wished  they  would  hurry  up.  This  suspense 
was  getting  on  his  nerves. 

At  last  a  noise  of  footsteps  was  heard  in  the 
hall.  They  were  coming  up  the  stairs  to  tell  him. 
What  a  lot  of  them  there  seemed  to  be!  And  why 
were  they  walking  so  slowly? 

And  then  it  suddenly  struck  him,  for  the  first 
time,  that  he  might  have  been  defeated.  The 
thought  was  so  unexpected  that,  for  the  moment, 
he  felt  more  surprised  than  angry.  Why  the  deuce 
didn't  they  come  in?  He  walked  to  the  door  and 
opened  it. 

Philip  was  there,  with  Steele,  and  Barroni,  and 
Tony  Mace,  and  several  others  whom  in  the  dark 
he  could  not  recognise. 

"Well?"  he  said. 

Philip  spoke.  "Ray,  old  boy,  I'm  awfully  sorry, 
but  the  other  fellow's  in." 

Ray  turned  away.  He  felt  for  a  second  inclined 
to  run  away  from  them  all.  Oxford  had  rejected 
him.  Oxford  didn't  want  him.  They  had  chosen 
some  one  else,  they  had  chosen  a  fool,  a  fat,  stupid 
fool. 


3i2  PATCHWORK 

"It's  a  damned  shame,"  said  Steele.  "Only  five 
votes,  Ray." 

Ray  looked  round  suddenly. 

"Only  five?" 

Steele  nodded. 

Ray  took  his  arm  and  laughed.  "But  that's 
totally  different.  Damn.  Damn  and  blast.  Oh 
Lord,  what  a  life !  Five  blasted  votes.  I  say,  come 
in  everybody.  I  don't  care  now,  so  much.  I 
thought,  when  you  told  me,  that  it  was  about 
five  hundred." 

He  still  did  not  realise  what  they  had  told  him. 
His  main  feeling  was  one  of  distrust.  He  felt  as 
though  every  man's  hand  was  against  him.  He 
had  been  tried  in  the  balance  and  found  wanting, 
by  five  votes! 

It  was  not  so  much  the  defeat;  after  all,  it  would 
have  been  almost  unprecedented  if  he  had  got  in 
so  quickly.  It  was  the  feeling  that  Oxford  was 
rejecting  him  and  all  that  he  stood  for;  that  she 
was  choosing  a  man  who  did  not  understand,  who 
never  could  understand,  what  Oxford  had  been, 
and  might  yet  again  be.  Panton  was  typical  of  the 
spirit  which  Ray  had  been  fighting  so  desperately. 
He  would  turn  the  Union  into  a  barrack  room.  He 
would  discourage  any  attempt  at  frivolity.  He  would 
write  long  reports  to  The  Times  saying  how  earnest 
Oxford  was  becoming,  how  crowded  were  the  lecture 
rooms,  and  how  rapidly  the  officers'  training  corps 


CLIMAX  313 

was  assuming  abnormal  proportions.  .  .  .  Damn. 

He  sat  down  heavily  on  the  sofa,  and  then 
suddenly  turned  to  Steele. 

"What  a  brute  I  am,  I  never  asked  if  you  got 
the  secretaryship?" 

Steele  nodded. 

Ray  took  both  his  hands.  "My  dear  old  thing, 
I'm  most  awfully  glad.    How  many?" 

"Rather  over  two  hundred,  I  think." 

"Good  Lord,  how  wonderful!  That  cheers  me 
no  end.  Look  here,  every  one,  do  have  drinks. 
People  ought  always  to  drink  on  these  occasions. 
Tommy,  open  some  champagne.  Barroni,  there's 
some  whiskey  in  that  cupboard — no,  not  that  one, 
the  one  above.  No — look  here,  I'll  come  and  get 
it  myself." 

He  was  glad  of  movement  to  relax  the  tension 
which  everybody  felt. 

"Of  course,  Ray,  you'll  stand  again?"  said 
Tommy,  sipping  some  pink  champagne. 

"You  certainly  must,"  added  Steele. 

"It  would  be  ridiculous  if  you  didn't,"  chimed 
in  Barroni.  "You're  absolutely  certain  to  get  in 
next  time." 

"D'you  think  so?" 

"I  know.  You  see,  Panton  had  stood  twice 
before,  and  this  was  only  your  first  shot.  He  only 
got  in  because  people  were  rather  sorry  for  him,  and 
also  because  he'd  got  such  damned  good  canvassers." 


3H  PATCHWORK 

"I  suppose  I  might  have  a  chance." 

"You'd  have  an  absolute  certainty.  You  see, 
up  to  the  present  you've  got  on  almost  too  quickly. 
I  know  you'd  have  made  a  jolly  good  President, 
but  people  don't  like  infant  prodigies.  I  know  it 
sounds  beastly,  but  it's  true.  In  future  you'll  have 
a  much  greater  prestige  than  you  ever  had  before, 
just  because  you've  been  defeated,  and  because,  as 
far  as  merit  goes,  you  ought  to  have  won." 

"I'd  bet  you  anything  you  like,"  said  Philip, 
as  he  wrestled  with  the  cork  of  a  whiskey  bottle, 
"that  you  get  a  three  hundred  majority  next 
time." 

"Taken,"  said  Ray. 

Steele  slapped  him  on  the  shoulder.  "That's 
the  spirit.  He's  going  to  stand  again.  I  shall  look 
forward  to  being  your  Junior  Treasurer." 

Ray  laughed  hopelessly. 

"You're  all  being  most  awfully  decent,"  he  said. 

"I  suppose  the  dinner's  off  though,  to-morrow?" 
added  Philip. 

Ray  spread  out  his  hands  in  an  eloquent  gesture. 

"Off?  Good  Lord,  no — the  dinner's  on.  More 
than  ever.  It  must  be  the  most  marvellous  dinner 
ever  held.     And  I  shall  ask  Panton  to  it." 

"Oh  no,  don't.     He'd  only  feel  awkward." 

"Would  he?  Very  well  then,  I  won't.  Only 
the  dinner  most  certainly  will  take  place.  It'd  be 
horribly  humiliating  to  put  it  off." 


PATCHWORK  315 

They  discussed  further  arrangements.  Ray  no 
longer  felt  depressed.  He  was  principally  upset 
now  because  he  knew  that  his  mother  would  feel 
it  more  than  he  did.  She  had  so  longed  for  him 
to  fill  the  post  which  his  father  had  occupied. 
However,  it  was  no  use  thinking  of  that.  Besides, 
he  would  fill  it,  sooner  or  later.  At  present  he 
felt  light-hearted,  almost  light-headed.  He  wanted 
music  and  laughter  and  light. 

He  sat  down  at  the  piano  and  played  a  rag. 

People  danced.  More  champagne  was  opened, 
the  windows  were  flung  wide,  and  from  the  street 
below  floated  up  the  cries  of  his  friends,  wishing 
him  good  luck  next  time,  or  telling  him,  if  they 
were  less  sympathetic,  to  "Stop  that  blasted  row." 

Oh  yes,  everything  was  all  right.  What  a  lot 
of  rot  he  was  talking!  The  figures  in  the  room 
seemed  to  move  like  marionettes — Tommy,  a  slim 
drooping  figure,  sipping  champagne  from  an 
unnaturally  slender  glass;  Whitely,  a  plaster  mask, 
glaring  with  eyes  of  fire;  Steele,  a  little  black 
silhouette  against  the  window;  Philip,  a  huge  statue 
on  the  heroic  scale;  Barroni,  a  grotesque  rotundity, 
smoking  a  cigar  with  mechanical  precision. 

What  was  the  tune  he  was  playing?  "Cigarette 
— cigarette — you're  the  only  true  lover,  that  I  can 
discover,  and  yet.  .  .  ." 

What  was  that?  Twelve.  The  figures  were 
going.    He    was    bidding    them    good-bye.    They 


316  CLIMAX 

clattered  down  the  stairs,  their  footsteps  were 
echoing  away  in  the  street  below.  And  it  was 
raining.  The  wind  blew  in  and  scattered  the  thick 
fume  of  tobacco  smoke  with  which  the  room  was 
made  blue.    He  must  shut  the  window. 

He  went  to  the  window  and  leant  out.  Good 
God,  it  was  raining  like  the  devil.  Streaks  of  it. 
He  could  hear  the  water  running  in  torrents  down 
the  gutters,  and  plashing  monotonously  from  the 
roof  of  the  Sheldonian.  His  hair  was  clinging  to 
his  head  in  a  wet  mass.  His  forehead  was  icy  cold. 
Oh,  that  it  might  rain  for  ever  ...  for  ever  .  .  . 
for  ever.  .  .  . 

In  great  echoes  the  rain  seemed  to  take  up  the 
rhythm  of  his  words.  It  was  windy  now  as  well  as 
wet,  and  for  moments  there  would  be  a  lull,  followed 
by  a  gust  that  flung  itself  like  a  great  wave  of  spray 
against  the  side  of  the  house.  Why  hadn't  he 
stayed  at  Boar's  Hill?  Why  had  he  ever  come 
back  to  Oxford?  Oxford  didn't  want  him.  Oxford 
was  dead.  Dead — given  over  to  rain  and  to  the 
ghosts  of  things  he  had  once  loved.  .  .  . 

Slowly  he  closed  the  window,  and  soon  he  was 
asleep  by  the  dying  fire. 


CHAPTER  V 

ANTI-CLIMAX 

NEXT  morning  the  rain  had  ceased,  and  the 
skies  were  clear.  Ray  woke  up  with  all 
feelings  of  depression  completely  vanished.  He  had 
breakfast  in  his  dressing-gown  at  nine  o'clock, 
breakfast  with  the  sun  streaming  in  on  to  the  blue 
china,  and  mocking  the  fire  which  crackled  fiercely 
up  the  chimney. 

He  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out.  There 
were  still  pools  of  water  in  the  road,  but  they  were 
rapidly  disappearing.  The  rows  of  stone  emperors 
looked  positively  jubilant,  with  one  side  of  their 
faces  splashed  with  morning  gold.  All  the  roofs 
were  silver,  and  laughed  up  to  the  great  empty  sky. 

Never  had  Oxford  been  more  lovable  nor  he 
more  capable  of  appreciating  its  love.  What  a  fool 
he  had  been  to  be  depressed  the  night  before!  Of 
course  he  would  stand  again,  and  next  time  he  was 
absolutely  certain  to  get  in.  Barroni  had  said  so, 
and  he  was  always  right.  In  some  ways  he  felt 
glad  he  had  been  defeated.  There  would  be  all 
the  fun  of  another  fight. 

Meanwhile  he  had  to  see  about  the  dinner  for 


3i8  PATCHWORK 

this  evening.  How  many  were  coming?  He  ran 
through  their  names  rapidly  in  his  head.  It  ought 
to  be  extraordinarily  amusing.  There  would  be  a 
lot  to  do,  though.     He  must  go  and  dress. 

Dressing  was  a  particularly  elaborate  operation 
that  mornng,  and  was  not  aided  by  Whitely,  who 
insisted  on  coming  in  to  Ray's  bedroom  to  offer  his 
condolences. 

"My  dear  fellow,  please  don't  think  any  more 
about  it,"  said  Ray.     "It  really  doesn't  signify." 

"Will  you  stand  again?" 

"Of  course.  And  next  term  I  shall  come  and  ask 
Panton  terrible  questions  in  private  business.  All 
about  his  domestic  affairs." 

They  went  out  together,  and  Ray  went  in  for 
a  moment  to  Black  well's.  There  he  saw  Tommy 
Quill,  who  shook  his  head  mournfully  at  him. 

"You  don't  look  nearly  depressed  enough,"  he 
said.  "I've  been  writing  the  most  wonderful  dirge 
for  you  all  last  night." 

Ray  laughed.  "I'm  not  depressed,"  he  said. 
"Only  I'll  try  to  be  if  you  want  me  to.  For  in- 
stance, I  might  buy  your  new  poems." 

"Yes,  do.  As  many  copies  as  you  like.  There 
they  are.     'Fauns  and  Flutes.'  " 

"Very  well.  I  shall  have  one  faun  and  one  flute. 
How  much  is  that?" 

"Three  shillings.  And  please  pay  for  them, 
otherwise  I  shan't  get  my  royalty.     And,  by  the 


ANTI-CLIMAX  319 

way,  a  nice  little  man  from  Queen's,  with  a  pink 
face  and  curly  hair,  came  round  this  morning  and 
asked  me  if  I  thought  you  would  let  him  caricature 
you  for  The  I  sis." 

"Me?  Rather.  I  love  being  caricatured.  It's 
such  a  bore  having  to  do  these  things  oneself." 

"Very  well.     I'll  send  him  round  to-morrow." 

Ray  went  from  Blackwell's  to  Mrs.  Levett's,  in 
the  Turl.  She  too  greeted  him  with  her  sympathy. 
He  had  always  bought  his  flowers  from  her,  and  she 
was  thoroughly  indignant  that  he  should  have  been 
defeated. 

"Mr.  Panton  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself, 
sir,"  she  said.  "He's  no  business  to  be  up  at  the 
'Varsity  at  all  at  his  age." 

"Never  mind,  Mrs.  Levett.  I  can  always  try 
again.  Meanwhile,  what  about  some  flowers? 
Roses  are  a  great  consolation  on  these  occasions." 

He  ordered  a  great  sheaf  of  yellow  roses  to  be 
sent  round  to  his  rooms  before  lunch. 

"And  have  you  got  any  grape-fruit?  Nice  big 
ones?" 

"Oh  yes,  sir."     She  produced  some. 

"Splendid.  I  shall  want  about  eight,  because 
there'll  be  at  least  fifteen  of  us  to-night." 

"Very  well,  sir.  And  I  hope  you'll  enjoy  your- 
selves." 

"Rather,  of  course  we  shall.  And  thanks  very 
much." 


32o  PATCHWORK 

He  walked  down  the  Turl,  and  across  the  High. 
How  kind  every  one  was!  There  was  Tugly, 
waving  affectionately  from  the  other  side  of  the 
road,  Tarn  Edwardes  breaking  away  from  a  group 
of  friends  to  offer  his  consolation,  Barroni  bowing 
with  a  mournful  sweep  of  the  head:  it  was  a  great 
thing  to  have  friends  like  that.  Oxford  was  going 
to  be  even  more  wonderful  than  before.  Of  late 
he  had  not  had  enough  to  do.  Now  it  would  start 
all  over  again.  He  was  going  to  be  caricatured  for 
The  Isis,  he  had  an  article  to  write  for  the  next 
Oxford  Mercury  on  "Liberalism  as  a  Living  Faith," 
he  was  going  to  play  at  the  Musical  Club,  he  would 
probably  be  made  President  of  the  Star,  and  next 
term  there  would  be  another  fight  for  the  Union, 
and  then,  triumph. 

It  was  obvious  that  he  ought  to  buy  some 
clothes  to  celebrate  the  occasion.  He  went  into 
Adamson's.  The  cool  smell  of  smoky  tweeds  was 
wonderfully  refreshing.  Philip  was  standing  in 
front  of  a  long  glass  trying  on  a  Daily  Mail  hat, 
assisted  by  Steele.  He  put  it  down  when  Ray 
came  in. 

"Oh,  do  put  it  on  again,"  said  Ray. 

"This  thing?  Good  Lord,  no.  And  why  are 
you  looking  so  abominally  cheerful  when  you  ought 
to  be  in  sackcloth  and  ashes?" 

Ray    laughed.    "Oh,    I    don't    know.     Because 


ANTI-CLIMAX  321 

I'm  going  to  choose  some  clothes,  I  expect.  Come 
upstairs  and  help  me." 

He  led  the  way  up,  and  soon  there  was  quite 
a  large  gathering  in  front  of  the  long  glass.  Ray 
felt  absurdly  vivacious — capable  of  getting  the 
keenest  enjoyment  from  the  smallest  things. 

"I  love  these  sort  of  glasses,  don't  you?"  he 
said.  "They  show  one  all  sorts  of  delightful  things 
— one's  back,  for  instance.  Nice  and  straight  at  the 
top,  and  then  beautifully  curved  in  the  middle.  Or 
does  that  only  mean  that  Adamson's  are  such  good 
tailors?  Anyway,  it's  very  nice.  And  then  one's 
hair.  I  never  knew  my  hair  was  in  the  least  like 
that.  Philip,  old  thing,  reach  me  that  grey  bowler 
a  minute." 

"I  shan't  be  seen  with  you  in  that,"  said  Philip. 

"I  quite  agree.  No  one  would  look  at  you. 
Besides,  a  second  party  would  ruin  the  effect.  I 
shall  walk  down  the  middle  of  the  road,  ploughing 
solitary  furrows.  I  really  think  I  must  have  a  suit 
built  to  match  this  bowler,"  he  said  to  the  cutter. 
"And  please  don't  tickle  my  ankles." 

"Certainly,  sir." 

"That,"  continued  Ray,  "is  the  way  you  should 
always  choose  clothes.  The  first  thing  to  get  is 
the  hat.  And  from  the  hat  you  gradually  receive 
inspiration.  For  instance,  if  I  were  building  a  house 
the  first  thing  I  should  buy  would  be  a  cat.    For 


322  PATCHWORK 

the  cat  I  should  buy  a  cushion,  for  the  cushion  I 
should  buy  a  carpet,  round  the  cat,  the  cushion,  and 
the  carpet  (lovely  alliteration!)  I  should  build  a 
room,  and  round  the  room  I  should  build  a  house. 
Then,  you  see,  one  would  walk  up  a  wonderful 
drive,  through  an  enormous  hall,  down  a  long  and 
tortuous  passage,  and  eventually  you  would  pene- 
trate to  the  cat.  And  in  the  cat's  eyes  you  would 
find  salvation.     Damn.     That  was  a  pin." 

By  now  the  audience  had  increased  and  the  little 
room  was  almost  full. 

"Go  on,  Ray,"  said  Philip. 

"It's  all  very  well  to  say  go  on,  but  when 
you've  got  only  one  trouser  leg  and  your  sock- 
suspenders  don't  match  your  tie,  it  isn't  very  easy. 
However,  for  your  own  sake  I  will  go  on.  It's  the 
same,  you  see,  with  anything.  You  should  always 
start  with  inessentials.  If  I  were  going  to  build  an 
Empire,  the  first  thing  I  should  think  of  would  be 
an  epigram.  Teace  with  honour,'  would  be  good, 
because  it  is  meaningless.  If  I  were  a  Conserva- 
tive I  should  say  Teace  with  Bonar.'  If  I  were 
going  to  found  a  religion  the  first  thing  I  should 
think  of  would  be  a  song.  Round  the  song  I  should 
build  a  service,  and  round  the  service  a  sort  of  .  .  . 
I  want  something  beginning  with  S.  So  we'll  drop 
that.  But  it's  really  very  true.  Hooray,  I've  got 
some  trousers.  Aren't  they  lovely?  What  couldn't 
you  do  in  trousers  like  this?" 


ANTI-CLIMAX  323 

By  now  the  conversation  had  become  general, 
and  Ray  addressed  his  remarks  to  Steele. 

"Don't  you  see,"  he  said,  "that's  why  I'm  not 
depressed?" 

"You'll  split  your  trousers  if  you  don't  look  out." 

"That  would  be,  in  itself,  an  adventure.  But 
I've  found  a  new  philosophy,  so  what  do  split 
trousers  matter?  Wilde  was  absolutely  right  when 
he  said  that  he  was  going  to  live  up  to  his  blue 
china.  Blue  china  should  contain  the  essence  of  a 
dozen  creeds.  Most  people  start  on  the  outskirts, 
and  spend  their  best  days  in  the  suburbs.  I  start 
at  Piccadilly  Circus,  and  if  I  ever  reach  Ealing,  it's 
only  on  the  way  to  the  New  World." 

"Ray,  you're  growing  delirious." 

"I  know.  Let's  go  and  have  something  at  the 
Star." 

Out  again,  through  the  noisy  streets,  Philip  and 
Steele  by  his  side. 

"This  is  the  most  restful  place  in  the  'Varsity," 
said  Steele,  after  they  had  clambered  up  the  narrow 
stairs  in  St.  Aldate's,  and  were  sitting  down  in  the 
long  grey  room. 

"I  know,"  said  Ray.  "And  that's  because  you 
let  me  do  the  decorations." 

He  looked  round  the  room  complacently.  There 
was  something  very  appealing  in  its  dove-grey  walls, 
and  the  tall  ceiling  with  its  beams  of  dead  black, 
and  the  high  windows  through  which  one  caught 


324  PATCHWORK 

sight  of  roots,  dappled  and  patched  with  moss. 

"The  ideal  place  for  the  birth  of  a  creed,"  said 
Ray.  "You  get  your  principles  from  the  ceiling, 
very  high  and  straight,  you  get  lucidity  from  the 
grey  walls,  and  hope  from  the  blue  chairs.  How 
nice  it  is  to  symbolise !  Have  another  whiskey  and 
soda?" 

Steele  shook  his  head. 

"Well,  what  shall  we  do  now?" 

"I  shall  go  and  do  some  work,"  said  Steele. 

"How  fearfully  morbid!  You  aren't  going  too, 
are  you?"    He  turned  to  Philip. 

"  'Fraid  I  must." 

"Brute.  Well,  I  shall  continue  to  walk  the 
streets,  and  rejoice  in  my  own  downfall." 

The  noise  of  the  High  was  like  music,  the  shops 
tempted  him  with  their  brilliantly  coloured  wares. 
Outside  Colin  Lunn's  he  bought  an  Oxford  News. 
It  would  have  an  account  of  the  Union  elec- 
tion in  it,  and  he  turned  to  see  what  they  had 
said. 

He  smiled  as  he  read.  Really,  everybody  was 
being  extraordinarily  kind.  The  paragraph  was 
headed  "Wait  and  See,"  and  while  opening  with  a 
few  conventional  words  of  congratulation  to  Pan- 
ton,  went  on  to  say:  "We  should  like  to  suggest  to 
Mr.  Sheldon  that  he  be  not  discouraged,  that  he 
should  consider  his  opponent's  very  narrow  margin 
of  success,  in  short,  that  he  should  not  hesitate  to 


ANTI-CLIMAX  325 

try  again.  We  have  seldom  listened  to  a  more 
finished  speaker  than  he  is,  to  one  with  a  finer  epi- 
grammatic sense.  Also,  beyond  all  his  personal 
considerable  accomplishments,  we  know  him  to  be 
considerate  and  sincere  to  his  friends,  and  chari- 
table to  his  enemies.  The  man  who  hasn't  enemies 
isn't  worth  his  salt,  for  by  their  number  often  can 
be  gauged  the  magnitude  of  his  personality.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  about  Mr.  Sheldon's  quality  and 
attractiveness,  and  as  far  as  varied  and  graceful  ac- 
complishments may  go  we  unhesitatingly  pronounce 
him  as  having  in  his  equipment  those  only  finest 
and  most  intense.  The  truest  and  best  sense  of 
that  much-abused  term  'culture'  Mr.  Sheldon  pos- 
sesses to  the  fullest  extent;  he  has  made  it  a  part 
of  himself;  he  imparts  it  to  everything  with  which 
he  comes  in  contact.  We  cannot  but  think  that  it 
is  one  of  Oxford's  most  cherished  possessions,  and 
if  she  keeps  this  in  mind  we  believe  Mr.  Shel- 
don cannot  remain  much  longer  without  receiv- 
ing the  most  treasured  guerdon  of  her  approba- 
tion." 

Ray  wondered  who  had  written  that.  He  put 
the  paper  in  his  pocket  and  blew  his  nose. 

Some  one  put  his  hands  on  his  shoulder.  He 
turned  round. 

"Good  Lord— David!" 

David  was  looking  radiant. 

"I've  been  chasing  you  everywhere,"  he  said. 


326  PATCHWORK 

"I'd  no  idea  you  were  up.  You  said  you  weren't 
coming  this  term." 

"I  know.  I  only  came  up  last  night  to  vote  for 
you,  and  then  when  I  heard  the  result  I  hadn't  the 
heart  to  come  round." 

"Silly  ass.  Why  ever  not?  I  never  felt  more 
bucked  in  my  life.  And  you're  looking  wonderful 
too.     You'll  lunch  with  me,  of  course?" 

David  shook  his  head.  "Can't  possibly  manage 
it,  I'm  afraid.     I'm  on  the  way  to  the  station  now." 

"Don't  be  absurd.     You  must." 

He  laughed.  "Not  even  for  you,  Ray.  I  simply 
have  to  get  back  to  London  this  afternoon." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  various  reasons.  Besides,  I'm  working 
awfully  hard.  You  see,  the  idiots  at  Trinity  told 
me  that  unless  I  could  learn  some  history  by  next 
term,  Oxford  would  have  no  further  use  for  me." 

"What  brutes!"  said  Ray,  as  they  got  into  a 
taxi.  "I  was  looking  forward  to  seeing  you  so 
much  at  the  beginning  of  this  term,  and  then  you 
never  arrived.  Mind  you  work  fearfully  hard  so 
that  you're  here  next  term.  By  the  way,  how  long 
have  you  been  up?    Altogether  I  mean." 

"I'm  a  second-year  man  now,"  said  David 
proudly. 

"A  second-year  man!  How  priceless  that  sounds! 
Do  you  know,  you're  the  first  person  I've  ever 


ANTI-CLIMAX  327 

heard  use  that  expression?  For  heaven's  sake  al- 
ways use  it." 

David  looked  at  him  in  surprised.     "Why?" 

"Because — oh,  don't  you  see?  It's  a  tradition. 
It's  a  symbol.  Ever  since  the  war  we've  had  every- 
body jumbled  up  in  hopeless  confusion.  Pre-war 
men  ranked  exactly  the  same  as  freshers.  There 
weren't  any  recognised  lines  at  all.  But  before  the 
war,  there  were.  You  were  really  'somebody'  if 
you  were  a  third-year  man.  It  was  considered 
rather  a  condescension  if  you  asked  a  fresher  to 
dine  with  you." 

They  drew  up  at  the  station,  and  David  got  out. 

"Don't  you  bother  to  come  too,"  he  said. 

"I  certainly  shall,"  said  Ray.  "I  love  putting 
pennies  in  the  ticket  machine.  It's  a  sort  of  child- 
ish amusement  with  me.  Besides — oh,  my  dear 
old  David,  I  want  to  go  on  talking.  I  want  to  talk 
to  you  for  ever.  We'll  do  such  wonderful  things 
next  term.  We'll  talk  about  'second-year'  men, 
we'll  go  on  the  river,  we'll  get  up  fearfully  early 
on  May  morning  and  hear  them  sing  at  Magdalen, 
we'll  get  drunk  on  Friday  nights  at  the  Grid — oh, 
and  then  you'll  dance  in  Commem.  week.  D'you 
remember  last  year?" 

"I  should  think  I  did." 

"Well,  it's  going  to  be  much  more  splendid  this 
year.    You  shall  do  a  solo  dance  at  Trinity,  and 


328  PATCHWORK 

I  shall  give  you  a  huge  bouquet  at  the  end  of  it. 
And  then  we'll  go  and  bathe  again,  and  swim  like 
fishes,  and  rush  all  over  the  place." 

"And  you'll  be  President  of  the  Union,"  said 
David,  taking  his  arm. 

"And  I'll  be  President  of  the  Union.  And  I 
shall  have  the  most  wonderful  debates.  All  the  of- 
ficers will  be  forced  to  wear  white  carnations.  .  .  ." 

"They  ought  to  be  green  ones." 

"Of  course  they  ought.  Green  carnations.  And 
I  shall  have  the  statues  washed,  and  the  minutes 
written  in  gold  ink.  I  think  we  might  get  a  band 
to  play  slow  music  in  the  garden  when  Barroni  was 
making  his  perorations.  And  then  we  can  get 
wonderful  limelight  effects — turning  out  all  the 
lights  and  just  having  a  green  streak  on  the  speak- 
er's face.  Of  course,  I  shall  make  the  Union  the 
most  wonderful  place  on  earth.  I've  got  a  sense 
of  style.  I'm  the  only  person  in  the  'Varsity  who 
has.  All  the  Cabinet  shall  come  down,  and  there'll 
be  a  wonderful  reconciliation  between  Winston  and 
F.  E.  Smith.  They'll  fall  on  each  other's  necks, 
and  then  the  lights  will  go  out  and  everybody  will 
call  'Shame.'  Oh,  David,  it's  going  to  be  such  fun. 
And  here's  the  beastly  train,  coming  to  take  you 
away.  .  .  ." 

As  he  walked  away  from  the  station,  Ray  felt 
as  though  the  last  year  had  been  merely  a  wonder- 
ful  prelude,   all   leading   up   to   to-day.     Looking 


ANTI-CLIMAX  329 

back,  he  realised  now  how  fiercely  he  had  been 
forced  to  fight.  Was  there  any  one  else  who  could 
have  done  what  he  had  done?  Was  there  any  one 
else  who  would  have  stood  up  to  the  ragging  he  had 
endured,  who  would  have  disregarded  the  libellous 
papers  which  had  endeavoured  to  put  him  down? 
And  who,  at  the  end  of  it  all,  would  have  taken  his 
defeat  in  the  greatest  struggle  of  all,  the  Union,  so 
calmly? 
Oh,  life  was  going  to  be  good — good! 

Dinner  that  night  was  at  eight,  and  Ray  spent 
most  of  the  time  after  tea  in  arranging  his  room. 
Two  extra  leaves  were  put  in  the  table,  which  was 
to  be  lit  only  by  candles  with  shades  of  primrose 
yellow,  which  harmonised  delightfully  with  the 
great  clusters  of  yellow  roses  which  he  had  bought 
at  Mrs.  Levett's.  For  each  guest  he  laid  a  button- 
hole of  white  carnations,  remembering  how  his 
mother  had  once  told  him  that  it  used  always  to 
be  the  custom  for  the  men  to  be  given  buttonholes 
whenever  they  came  to  dine.  Much  to  the  dismay 
of  Mrs.  Griffiths  he  had  insisted  on  removing  the 
table  cloth,  and  had  himself  polished  the  dark  oak 
surface  till  it  shone  like  ice,  and  reflected  as  if  it 
were  water  the  old  English  glass  of  which  he  was 
so  fond.  During  the  afternoon  he  had  suddenly 
conceived  a  desire  to  have  menus  printed.  He  had 
rushed  round  to  the  Holywell  Press,  and  had  threat- 


330  PATCHWORK 

ened  Baines,  the  managing  editor,  with  every  de- 
scription of  horror  if  he  did  not  get  them  done  in 
time.  And  now  they  were  here,  all  standing  in 
rows,  with  yellow  ribbons  that  matched  the  yellow 
roses.  It  really  was  going  to  be  a  wonderful  din- 
ner. 

At  ten  minutes  to  eight  they  began  to  arrive. 
Steele  was  the  first,  and  was  ordered  by  Ray  to 
uncork  a  bottle  of  olives.  Then  Barroni  appeared 
in  a  long  opera  cloak,  which,  as  he  informed  Ray, 
was  purchased  specially  for  the  occasion.  Then 
Tommy  Quill,  closely  followed  by  Philip,  who  sat 
down  at  the  piano  and  played  slow  music  while 
the  others  arrived. 

What  masses  of  them  there  were!  He  hoped 
they  wouldn't  clash.  Apart  from  the  Union  crowd 
he  had  insisted  on  having  a  large  number  of  the 
House  set,  because,  as  he  said  to  Philip,  they  were 
always  so  cheerful,  and  always  got  drunk  so  grace- 
fully. As  usual  they  were  a  little  late.  Victor 
Cartaret,  cool  and  full  of  condolences,  strolled  in 
with  Lord  Henry  Vane,  who  appeared  to  be  on  the 
point  of  tears.  Tommy  Gott  too,  with  his  fair  hair 
brushed  well  back  over  his  forehead,  apologising 
for  not  having  offered  his  sympathies  before. 

"I  voted  for  you,  you  know,"  he  said,  in  a  tired 
voice,  "only  it  just  didn't  make  any  difference.  I 
think  they  ought  to  count  my  vote  as  half  a  dozen, 
because  I  never  go  to  the  Union.    Anyway,  you'll 


ANTI-CLIMAX  331 

get  in  next  time.  And  there's  pink  champagne  on 
the  sideboard."     He  fell  to  pommelling  Vane. 

Henry  Channing  was  the  next  arrival.  He  en- 
tered talking  in  a  charming  American  accent,  with 
intense  rapidity,  about  nothing  at  all.  "My  dear 
Ray,  how  quite  depressing!  We  all  voted  for  you, 
and  Tommy  hired  an  enormous  barouche  which  we 
drove  to  the  polls  in  the  most  flagrant  manner,  I 
think  it  most  noble  of  us.  We  were  just  in  the 
middle  of  a  game  of  bridge — we  always  play  bridge 
on  Monday  mornings — and  suddenly  Tommy  said, 
'Good  God'  or  Good  something  or  other — 'Ray's 
standing  for  the  Presidency 'of  the  Union!'  So  of 
course  we  all  rushed — simply  rushed — to  the  Union. 
It  was  so  clever  of  us  to  find  where  it  was,  as  we 
hardly  ever  go,  except  in  the  dark,  and  when  you're 
speaking.  I'm  sure  my  vote  ought  to  count  at 
least  twenty.  ..." 

"I've  said  that  already,"  shouted  Tommy  from 
the  sofa. 

"Thank  you."  Henry  bowed.  "And  here's  dear 
Oscar." 

Oscar  was  the  name  given  to  Osbert  Wilde,  one 
of  the  few  charming  people  in  Magdalen.  He 
apologised  for  not  changing.  "My  idiot  of  a  scout 
upset  my  shaving  water  all  over  my  shirt,  and  it 
was  the  only  one  I  had.  And  oh,  Ray,  old  boy, 
I  am  so  sorry.  I  thought  I  should  find  you  on  a 
sofa  dressed  in  black  and  covered  with  lilies.    It 


332  PATCHWORK 

is  quite  abominable."  He  towered  over  Ray  witn 
an  expression  of  deep  sympathy  on  his  pink  face. 

"Of  course  it'll  really  do  him  a  lot  of  good,  you 
know,"  said  Victor  Cartaret,  coming  over  from  the 
window  and  taking  his  arm.     "Won't  it,  Ray?" 

He  laughed.  "Oh,  I  don't  know.  I  suppose  all 
disagreeable  things  do.    Are  we  all  here  now?" 

"Let's  sit  down  and  see,"  said  Philip. 

"I  think  Philip  ought  to  be  forced  to  remain  at 
the  piano,"  said  Osbert. 

"Thanks,  you  can  remain  there  yourself  if  you 
want.     Personally,  I'm  going  to  get  drunk." 

"Not  yet,  please,  Philip.     I  want  to  talk." 

But  Ray  had  no  desire  to  monopolise  the  con- 
versation to-night.  He  merely  felt  extraordinarily 
happy.  Everybody  was  talking  at  the  top  of  their 
voices.  Remarks  were  shouted  to  him  from  the 
end  of  the  table,  and  he  made  laughing  replies, 
corks  popped,  people  smoked  with  every  course. 
Steele  was  on  his  right,  the  guest  of  honour. 

"I  never  said  how  damned  glad  I  really  was 
about  your  election,"  he  said  to  him  quietly. 

"There  wasn't  any  need." 

"Yes,  there  was.  I  was  absurdly  depressed  last 
night." 

"I  don't  blame  you.  But  really,  Ray,  you've  got 
no  sort  of  cause  to  be  depressed.  Next  term  every- 
thing will  be  all  right  again.  Everybody  knows 
what  you  have  done  for  Oxford." 


ANTI-CLIMAX  333 

"What  we've  done,  you  mean." 

"Perhaps  I  do.  In  fact,  I  think  I  do  mean  that. 
It's  rather  funny,  you  know,  but  I've  been  drawing 
some  of  the  fire  which  used  to  be  concentrated  on 
you." 

Ray  looked  at  him  in  surprise.  "How  do  you 
mean?" 

"Well,  didn't  you  see  the  paper  they  published 
this  morning?" 

"No.    Who  got  it  out?" 

"I  think  it  was  another  of  Berry's  productions. 
Anyway,  there  was  a  picture  of  you  on  the  throne, 
and  a  picture  of  me  behind,  whispering  things  in 
your  ear,  and  apparently  urging  you  on  to  further 
deviltry." 

Ray  laughed.     "What  idiots  they  are!" 

"Aren't  they?  They  think  now  that  I'm  a  sort 
of  sinister  figure  in  the  background  that  conceives 
all  these  notions  of  clubs  and  papers,  and  that 
you're  only  the  figure-head." 

There  was  an  uproar  at  the  other  end  of  the 
table,  and  it  was  some  moments  before  they  could 
speak  again. 

"Somehow,"  said  Ray,  after  a  while,  "I  feel  that 
we've  already  played  our  biggest  part." 

"Why?  What  about  the  Union?  That's  the 
biggest  of  all.  .  .  ." 

"I  know.  But  it  isn't  ours.  The  club  was  ours, 
the  Mercury  was  ours,   the  papers  were  ours — 


334  PATCHWORK 

nearly  everything  that  mattered  was  ours.  But 
the  Union,  that's  just  ours  for  a  term,  and  then — 
perhaps  even  not  for  a  term.  .  .  ." 

There  was  another  outburst,  and  Ray  laughed 
and  gave  up  the  attempt  he  had  been  making  to 
talk. 

"Tommy,  you're  getting  drunk,"  he  shouted. 

"I  called  for  madder  music  and  for  stronger 
wine,"  fluted  Tommy,  in  a  voice  of  intense  melan- 
choly. "I  have  beenn  faithful  to  thee,  Cynara,  in 
my  fash  ...  in  my  fashion." 

Having  said  this  he  consumed  olives  with  an 
air  of  religious  devotion. 

"Speech,  Tommy,"  shouted  Philip. 

Everybody  shouted  with  laughter.  The  door 
opened  for  a  moment,  and  Mrs.  Griffiths  appeared 
with  a  telegram. 

"Put  it  down  on  the  sideboard,  will  you,  please?" 
said  Ray.     Who  could  bother  with  telegrams  now? 

Tommy  rose,  a  little  unsteadily,  and  waved  his 
wineglass,  which  was  fortunately  empty. 

"Ladies,"  he  said,  "and  gentlemen."  "Shame!" 
from  ieveral  corners  of  the  room. 

He  looked  round  in  dreamy  abstraction.  "It  was 
not  my  intention,"  he  said,  "to  cast  aspersions  on 
your  sex.  I  was  merely  expressing  a  pleasurable 
hope  as  to  your  manners.  We  have,"  and  here  his 
voice  rose  to  the  soprano  register,  and  kept  there, 
much  to  Ray's  delight — "we  have,"  he  repeated, 


ANTI-CLIMAX  335 

"the  inestimable  honour  of  drinking  (loud  laughter) 
the  health  of  one  of  our  most  distinguished  citizens." 
He  repeated  the  latter  word  several  times.  "Mr. 
Sheldon  (cheers)  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
(cheers),  the  most  witty  (cheers),  the  most  ver- 
satile of  our — our  leaders.  And  I  am  going  to 
tell  him  a  secret.  I  am  going  to  write  a  poem  to 
him.  I  have,"  he  said  modestly,  "written  many 
poems  in  my  life  (loud  cheers).  Very  beauti- 
ful poems,  too.  The  themes  have  been  furnished 
by  the  legends  of  Dr.  Smith's  Classical  Dictionary 
(laughter).  'The  satisfaction  of  beholding  sunset' 
(laughter),  'The  assumed  satisfaction  of  beholding 
dawn'  (loud  laughter),  'The  theoretical  condemna- 
tion of  political  tyranny,  and  proofs  of  the  existence 
of  God'  (cheer).  But  no  theme,  no  sunset,  no 
dawn,  no  despotism,  no  God,  has  ever  filled  me 
with  such  magic  as  that  with  which  I  am 
filled  tonight,  for  Mr.  Sheldon  is  himself  a  poet. 
Ray,  may  you  live  for  ever,  and  pass  the  soda- 
water." 

He  sat  down  amid  a  renewed  uproar,  and  every 
one  shouted  to  Ray  for  a  speech.  However,  he  felt 
incapable  of  replying  just  then,  and  was  glad  when 
Philip  immediately  sat  down  at  the  piano  and 
played  the  "  'Varsity  Rag." 

"Clear  the  decks!"  shouted  Osbert.  The  rugs 
were  pulled  up  indiscriminately,  the  table  shoved 
on  one  side,  and  soon  everybody  was  dancing,  ex- 


336  PATCHWORK 

cept  Tommy,  who  waved  a  yellow  rose  mournfully 
backwards  and  forwards.  Sometimes  they  would 
stop  dancing,  and  then  a  speech  would  be  made, 
followed  by  songs  in  which  everybody  sang  the 
chorus.  Ray  took  Philip's  place  at  the  piano,  and 
then  Victor  Cartaret  played  the  opening  of  Pagliac- 
ci  in  which  he  somehow  contrived  to  sing  bass, 
soprano/  and  tenor  all  at  once. 

Carnival!  The  room  was  strewn  with  rose 
leaves,  and  everybody  was  singing: 

"You'll  do  it  in  your  bath,  you'll  do  it  in  the  town, 
You'll  do  it  in  pyjamas,  and  you'll  do  it  in  your 
gown, 
With  the  Jaggers'  Jazz  and  the  Coppers'  Craggers' 

crawl, 
And  the  Magdalen  Meander,  say,  Kid,  some  ball! 
And  the  Wadham  Waddle.  .  .  ." 

Damn!  There  was  another  smashed  glass. 
Ray  kicked  it  into  the  fireplace,  and  gulped  some 
brandy.  Oh  Lord,  what  a  row!  There  was  Bar- 
roni,  sitting  on  the  end  of  the  sofa,  crowned  with 
a  wreath  of  ivy,  apostrophising  an  empty  decanter 
of  port.  Tommy  Quill  was  almost  asleep,  but  still 
murmured  plaintively  that  Ray  was  a  poet,  "an 
artist  of  life,"  he  said,  and  swallowed  the  stone  of 
an  olive  which  for  some  time  he  had  been  chewing 
with  intense  satisfaction.  Eleven  struck,  and  half- 
past,  and  it  was  only  at  two  minutes  to  twelve  that 
the  party  eventually  broke  up. 


ANTI-CLIMAX  337 

Ray  was  flushed  and  crimson.  He  embraced 
everybody  as  they  went  out,  and  took  up  some 
roses  and  hurled  them  over  the  stairs  as  they  were 
clattering  down.  One  of  them  nearly  knocked  down 
Tommy. 

"Good  night!" 

"Good  night!     Good  night,  everybody!" 

He  slammed  the  door  and  leant  against  it,  weak 
with  laughter. 

How  marvellous  it  had  all  been!  He  felt  rather 
drunk.  The  room  was  not  swaying,  but  it  was 
charmingly  vague.  The  ceiling  seemed  much  too 
big  for  the  floor,  and  the  rugs  positively  refused  to 
be  put  straight.  He  lay  back  on  the  sofa  and 
closed  his  eyes.  No — he  mustn't  close  his  eyes,  be- 
cause if  he  did  that  his  head  seemed  to  leave  his 
body  and  turn  round  and  round  till  he  felt  giddy. 
He  opened  his  eyes  again,  as  widely  as  he  could, 
and  looked  with  benign  interest  round  the  room. 

First  he  saw  the  piano,  its  black  surface  littered 
with  coffee-cups,  in  whose  saucers  were  still  smok- 
ing the  ends  of  several  cigarettes.  The  smoke 
went  up  in  a  little  blue  thread  which  quivered  at 
the  top  in  the  draught  from  the  window.  The 
window  was  wide  open  and  the  heavy  curtains 
which  he  had  drawn  aside  stirred  restlessly  in  the 
night  air  which  drifted  through. 

Then  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  walls.    How 


338  PATCHWORK 

drunk  that  harlequin  looked  in  his  white  frame! 
He  seemed  to  be  laughing  at  Ray.  Damn  his  im- 
pudence. And  the  picture  of  the  man  blowing  bub- 
bles to  the  moon.  How  they  floated  up,  so  grace- 
fully— black  and  green  and  blue — up  to  the  yellow 
moon.  Of  course  he  was  a  genius — nobody  but  a 
genius  could  have  painted  a  picture  like  that.  He 
would  paint  a  lot  more. 

Next,  his  eyes  rested  on  the  table.  What  an  un- 
holy mess!  Mrs.  Griffiths  would  be  sick  when  she 
saw  it  to-morrow:  But  it  was  still  beautiful,  with 
the  beauty  of  a  ruin.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  did 
look  rather  like  a  ruin.  The  bottles  looked  like 
the  towers  of  a  deserted  town,  and  the  glasses 
clustered  together  like  houses.  One  of  them  was 
smashed.  Over  the  whole  thing  towered  a  great 
forest — a  forest  of  roses — yellow  roses.  .  .  . 

His  gaze  wandered  to  the  sideboard.  Somebody, 
probably  himself,  would  have  to  pay  for  that 
smashed  china.  Some  fruit  had  been  upset  on  the 
floor,  and  an  apple  was  still  sizzling  in  the  cinders. 
And  what  was  that  dripping  noise  that  never 
ceased?  Oh  Lord,  another  bottle  of  champagne  up- 
set. He  really  must  wake  up  and  see  if  he  couldn't 
get  some  sort  of  order  into  all  this  confusion. 

He  rubbed  his  eyes,  and  walked  stiffly  over  to 
the  sideboard.  Yes,  it  was  a  bottle  of  champagne 
that  had  been  overturned.  He  picked  it  up.  He 
supposed  he  ought  to  get  a  cloth  and  wipe  up  the 


ANTI-CLIMAX  339 

debris,  but  somehow  he  felt  disinclined  for  action. 
He  poured  out  a  glass  of  water  and  drank  it  greed- 
ily, and  then  stared  again  at  the  sideboard. 

Suddenly  he  noticed  a  coloured  envelope,  satu- 
rated in  champagne,  lying  on  one  of  the  plates. 
What  a  funny  colour  it  was!  It  must  be  that 
blasted  telegram  that  Mrs.  Griffiths  had  brought  in 
earlier  in  the  evening.  But  it  wasn't  the  colour  of 
an  ordinary  telegram.  It  gleamed  maliciously  in 
the  light  of  the  candle  under  which  it  lay.  As  he 
looked  at  it  all  the  candles  in  the  room  suddenly 
blew  out  in  a  gust  of  wind.  He  stumbled  to  the 
window  and  shut  it,  and  groped  for  the  matches. 
He  felt  that  the  electric  light  would  be  much  too 
glaring  just  now. 

He  lit  the  candle  and  put  it  on  the  mantelpiece. 
Now  for  this  beastly  telegram.  It  was  rather 
dramatic  to  read  it  like  this,  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  under  the  flickering  candle. 

He  stretched  out  his  hand  and  took  it  from  the 
plate.  It  was  sopped  through,  and  he  had  to  shake 
it  before  he  could  get  it  open. 

And  then  he  read: 

"Mother  seriously  ill  operation  necessary  come  at 
once.    Helen." 

Who  was  that  strange  figure  that  was  looking  at 
him  in  the  glass,  with  such  a  white  face  and  such 
staring  eyes?     Himself? 

Slowly  he  closed  his  eyes,  and  bowed  his  head. 


CHAPTER  VI 

RAY  ALONE 

A  DAY  gone,  and  a  night.  Another  day,  and  in 
his  mind  a  broken  picture — white  cliffs,  and 
a  racing  sea,  a  sense  of  hopelessness,  Paris — a  city 
of  terror,  the  slow  train. 

Years  had  gone  by  since  two  nights  ago.  He 
was  so  old  now.  So  old.  Everything  was  gone. 
Oxford  was  gone,  vanished  like  the  mists  in  early 
spring. 

If  only  he  could  arrive  in  time! 

Marseilles — that  was  days  ago — Toulon — Hy- 
eres — would  they  never  arrive?  And  then — Can- 
nes. .  .  . 

With  his  heart  beating  faster  and  faster,  he 
jumped  out.  He  saw  Helen  standing  alone  by  the 
entrance.  He  suddenly  felt  as  though  he  dared  not 
speak  to  her,  as  though  he  wanted  to  jump  over  the 
railings  and  run  through  the  wet  streets  and  carry 
his  mother  away  before  any  one  else  could  get  to 
her. 

He  went  up  to  her.  He  did  not  notice  how  un- 
steadily he  walked. 

He  put  his  hand  on  hers.  "What?"  He  could 
340 


RAY  ALONE  341 

say  nothing  else.    Even  then  he  found  his  mind 
thinking  how  incongruous   the  question  sounded. 

"Oh,  Ray!"  She  burst  into  tears  and  turned 
away.  Ray  ran  his  hands  through  his  hair,  and 
tried  to  swallow.  His  throat  was  dry.  He  felt 
sick.  What  did  she  mean?  Why  didn't  she  tell 
him?  And  yet,  she  mustn't  tell  him.  She  might 
be  wrong.  She  must  be  wrong.  Out  of  the  corner 
of  his  eye  he  suddenly  saw  his  mother's  car.  He 
had  to  get  to  it  somehow.  That  would  take  him. 
Oh!  quickly.  He  got  out  of  the  station  and  told 
the  driver  who  he  was. 

"Quickly.    Quickly.     For  God's  sake." 

The  car  rushed  down  the  long  straight  prome- 
nade. A  great  wind,  specked  with  rain,  sang  in  his 
ears  and  blew  his  hair  into  his  eyes.  It  revived 
him  sufficiently  to  tell  him  how  exhausted  he  was. 
He  felt  beaten,  tired,  bruised.     It  was  so  cold. 

And  it  was  growing  so  dark.  They  were  out  in 
the  country  now,  and  the  long  lines  of  poplars  bent 
their  heads  in  the  wind,  and  the  grasses  in  the 
hedgerow  were  alive  and  lamenting.  Over  the  hills 
the  sun  had  already  gone  down,  but  it  still  coloured 
with  blood  the  ragged  clouds  which  seemed  to  sweep 
triumphantly  over  its  grave. 

On,  on — would  they  never  get  there?  And  yet, 
did  he  want  to  get  there?  He  was  afraid.  He 
had  become  a  coward.  It  was  almost  night  now 
and  the  wind  was  rising.     He  did  not  know  what 


342  PATCHWORK 

would  happen  when  he  got  there.  Why  didn't  he 
know?  He  turned  to  the  driver  as  though  to  ask 
him.  But  again  he  could  not  speak.  He  could 
only  look  out  at  the  flying  poplars,  and  beyond 
them  to  the  rolling  fallows  and  the  lonely  sky. 

And  then,  in  the  valley  beneath,  a  white  house. 
Ray  put  his  hands  over  his  eyes. 

He  knew,  as  soon  as  they  turned  into  the  great 
drive,  that  his  mother  was  dead.  He  did  not 
realise  what  it  meant  to  him,  but  he  knew.  This 
white  house  was  a  tomb.  And  he  suddenly  wanted 
to  be  alone.  He  felt  a  fierce  resentment  as  the 
door  opened  and  he  saw  the  dimly  lighted  hall  and 
the  snivelling  housekeeper.  What  right  had  she 
here?  What  right  had  these  men  in  black  who 
wanted  him  to  sit  down?  Why  did  they  keep  him 
waiting?  She  would  not  have  allowed  it.  She 
wanted  to  see  him.  He  knew  that.  She  was  dead 
— but  she  wanted  to  see  him. 

"Where?" 

Again  he  could  only  say  the  one  word. 

They  took  him  up  the  lonely  stone  stairs,  and 
along  the  corridor  hung  with  tapestries  that  swung 
restlessly  in  the  wind.  Yes,  that  door  at  the  end, 
that  must  be  it. 

He  stood  in  front  of  it,  and  motioned  them  away. 
And  now  he  was  indeed  alone. 

When  they  found  him  again,  it  was  dawn.    He 


RAY  ALONE  343 

was  still  kneeling  by  her  bed,  and  the  room  was 
heavy  with  the  scent  of  roses,  mixed  with  the  sickly 
smell  of  the  anaesthetic.  Grey  light  was  streaming 
through  the  barred  windows,  and  listlessly  a  few 
blossoms  of  wisteria  tossed  outside  in  the  drizzling 
rain. 


PERORATION 


PERORATION 


WILL  he  never  come  back?" 
"Not  now." 

The  speakers  were  Steele  and  David.  The  time 
was  two  years  later.  The  place  was  Oxford,  shad- 
owed with  the  mists  of  early  spring. 

David  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out.  The 
High  was  noisy  and  cheerful  as  usual,  but  the  jangle 
of  bicycle  bells,  the  rush  and  clatter  of  traffic,  the 
laughter  and  shouts  from  the  crowd  below,  jarred 
strangely  on  his  nerves  this  evening. 

"I  don't  think  anybody  will  ever  know  how  I 
have  missed  him."  He  kept  his  eyes  on  the  mottled 
roofs  opposite  him. 

"Nor  I." 

There  was  silence  for  a  few  minutes. 

"I  wonder  if  he's  changed  much?" 

"Ray  won't  ever  change." 

Steele  warmed  his  hands  at  the  flickering  fire, 
the  sole  light  in  the  room.  "He  might  have  done 
anything,"  he  said  slowly.  "I  don't  think  I  have 
ever,  in  all  my  life,  known  anybody  quite  like  Ray. 
He  was  brilliant  in  everything  he  did.    There  was 

347 


348  PATCHWORK 

nothing  he  couldn't  have  achieved.  Whether  he 
was  speaking,  or  playing  the  piano,  or  editing 
papers,  or  just  laughing  and  talking,  and  ragging 
about,  he  was  always  the  centre  of  the  whole  thing." 

David  nodded. 

"It  wasn't  just  froth,"  went  on  Steele,  "because 
he  was  an  astonishingly  wise  person,  too.  Where 
he  got  his  wisdom  from  I  could  never  understand. 
He  wasn't  a  scholar,  because  he  never  attempted 
to  work,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  But 
he  had  more  than  anybody  I  know  an  exact  knowl- 
edge of  how  to  do  the  things  that  he  wanted  to  do." 

David  sat  down  by  the  fire.  "It  is  extraordinary 
what  a  blank  one  person  can  make  in  one's  mind, 
isn't  it?  Ray  filled  a  very  great  part  of  mine.  I 
didn't  really  bother  so  much  about  what  he  did, 
because  all  his  various  interests  didn't  interest  me 
in  the  least,  except  that  he  was  doing  them.  And 
except  his  music,  of  course.  The  reason  why  I 
loved  Ray,  and  why  I  still  love  him,  although  I 
never  see  him  and  he  hardly  ever  writes,  is  because 
in  spite  of  all  these  things,  in  spite  of  all  that  sort 
of  outward  layer  of  brilliance,  he  was  such  an  ex- 
traordinarily simple  and  lovable  person  under- 
neath.   He  was  such  a  perfect  friend." 

"Yes,  he  was." 

"I  mean — he'd  often  come  round  to  my  rooms, 
after  making  some  speech,  or  amusing  half  the  col- 
lege, or  doing  something  wild  and — and  spectacular 


PERORATION  349 

— he'd  come  round  to  my  rooms,  and  sit  in  front 
of  the  fire,  and  stroke  that  absurd  little  fluffy  dog 
I  had,  and  laugh  quietly,  and  say  how  damned  silly 
the  whole  thing  was." 

He  paused,  and  looked  in  the  fire.     "I  remember 
once,  last  summer,  when  he  had  been  particularly 
wild,  how  he  came  round  at  about  eleven  o'clock 
at  night  to  my  rooms  in  Trinity.     He  ought  to 
have  gone  to  bed,  because  he  was  dead  tired;  he 
only  came  because  he  had  promised  to — Ray  never 
broke   a   promise — at   least   only   once — and    that 
wasn't  his   fault.    And  he  was  so  tired  that  he 
couldn't  even  eat  some  strawberries   I'd   got   for 
him,  but  just  sat  looking  at  them,  and  laughing 
softly  to  himself.     And  I  asked  him  why  he  rushed 
about  so  much  and  why  he  never  rested,  and  he 
said,  T  can't  rest.     It  isn't  in  me.'     And  then  he 
talked  a  lot  about  how  unsettled  he  felt,  and  what 
a  rotter  he  was — he  always  used  to  call  himself  a 
rotter  in  private,  and   a  genius  in  public,  that's 
what  most  people  didn't  understand — and  finally 
he  got  up  and  said  he  was  creating  the  old  Oxford 
again.     I    didn't    understand,    and    he    never    ex- 
plained. .  .  ." 

"The  old  Oxford?"  Steele  smiled.  '\I  believe 
that  was  really  what  Ray  was  trying  to  do  all  the 
time.  He  was  trying  to  live  a  life  which  can't 
really  be  lived  any  more.  I  remember  when  I  first 
met  him — in  the  army — he  used  to  say  how  wonder- 


35o  PATCHWORK 

ful  he  thought  Oxford  was  going  to  be.  He'd 
read  'Sinister  Street/  and  he'd  made  up  his  mind 
that  he  was  going  to  lead  that  sort  of  life  again. 
And  then  when  he  came  up,  he  found  he  couldn't. 
Everything  was  different — you  know  how  different 
it  was  yourself.  Ray  really  belonged  to  the  past. 
And  instead  of  accepting  things  as  they  were,  like 
most  of  us,  he  just  sat  down  and  said,  'I'm  going  to 
make  Oxford  again  myself.  I'm  going  to  change 
everything,  or  rather  to  make  everything  what  it 
once  was.'  Of  course,  it  was  absolutely  impossible. 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  nearly  did  succeed.  He 
influenced  Oxford  more  than  anybody  else  since 
the  war.  It  wasn't  merely  that  everybody  in  the 
'Varsity  knew  him,  that  he  was  a  sort  of  show  per- 
son— it  was  simply  that  first  of  all  he  made  himself 
as  prominent  as  anybody  could  be,  and  then  that 
he  proceeded  to  live,  in  the  limelight,  the  sort  of 
life  he  had  all  along  intended  to  live.  When  he 
left  he  was  just  about  reaching  his  ambition.  He 
could  have  been  President  of  the  Union  by  holding 
up  his  little  finger,  he  could  have  run  any  damned 
thing  he  liked — I  wouldn't  have  been  in  the  least 
surprised  if  he  had  calmly  gone  into  training  and 
walked  off  with  a  blue.  If  he'd  wanted  to,  you 
can  be  quite  sure  he'd  have  got  it.  But — well,  it's 
no  use  talking  of  what  he  might  have  done.  He's 
gone  now,  and  he'll  never  come  back.  To  Oxford 
at  any  rate.  .  .  ." 


PERORATION  351 

And  what  was  Ray  doing? 
At  the  exact  moment  at  which  David  and  Steele 
were  talking,  he  was  at  a  big  luncheon  party  in 
New  York,  whither  he  had  gone  a  few  months  after 
his  mother's  death.  He  was  on  this  occasion,  as 
on  nearly  every  other,  the  centre  of  interest.  In 
this  huge  room,  with  its  stone  walls  and  gilded  ceil- 
ing, he  had  all  the  background  he  could  desire. 
Beyond  the  fact  that  he  looked  a  little  older  and 
that  the  wrinkle  on  his  forehead  which,  in  his  Ox- 
ford days,  he  had  been  at  pains  to  conceal,  was 
allowed  to  furrow  as  deep  as  it  liked,  the  casual 
observer  would  have  noticed  in  him  little  change. 
He  was,  as  of  old,  perfectly  dressed;  and  the  short 
black  coat  which  he  wore  seemed  to  enhance  the 
fresh  colour  in  his  cheeks.  He  seemed  to  be  en- 
joying his  lunch,  and  sipped  ice-water,  nibbled 
salted  almonds,  and  talked. 

He  was  talking  at  the  moment  to  a  stout  hand- 
some woman  opposite  him,  whose  corsage  seemed 
to  drip  with  pearls. 

"So  you  really  like  New  York,  Mr.  Sheldon?" 

"Love  it,"  he  returned. 

"That's  very  charming  of  you,  I'm  sure.  Now 
do  tell  us  why?" 

Ray  smiled  at  the  inevitable  question. 

"Well,  for  one  thing,  because  I  think  it's  so  ex- 
traordinarily beautiful." 


352  PATCHWORK 

" Beautiful?  My  goodness!  And  you  an  Ox- 
ford man!" 

She  merely  echoed  the  astonishment  of  the  rest 
of  the  table. 

Ray  frowned  for  a  brief  second,  and  then  smiled 
again. 

"That's  partly  the  reason.  You  see,  I  didn't 
think  Oxford  was  beautiful  at  all." 

"Oh  my!"  She  lifted  her  hands.  "And  all  those 
charming  picturesque  old  buildings!  Why,  I  could 
live  there  for  ever,  and  .  .  .  and  just  dream." 
She  closed  her  eyes,  and  breathed  heavily  for  a 
moment  to  show  how  deeply  affected  she  was. 

"I  used  to  think  that  too,  once,"  said  Ray.  "But 
I  don't  think  so  now." 

"Please,  Mr.  Sheldon,  do  explain." 

"Oh,  yes,  please.  Pm  sure  an  author  like  you 
must  have  some  reason."  (Ray  had  a  successful 
comedy  running  at  The  Vaudeville.) 

Ray  smiled  and  drew  figures  on  the  misted  out- 
side of  his  glass  of  ice-water.  Should  he  explain? 
Could  he  explain?  And  yet  at  that  moment  he  felt 
he  wanted  to  talk  about  Oxford.  He  lifted  his  eyes, 
and  caught  sight  of  a  huge  Wyndham  Lewis  draw- 
ing which,  in  a  moment  of  cubist  ecstasy,  his  hostess 
had  allowed  to  be  hung  in  her  dining-room. 

He  pointed  to  it.  "Do  you  see,  that?"  he  said. 
"Well,  that's  what  I  mean." 

She  looked  at  it. 


PERORATION  353 

"Oh,  that  awful  thing?  Nora,  I  can't  think  why 
you  have  it  in  the  dining-room." 

Everybody  agreed.  It  was  so  hard,  and  so 
dreadful,  "and  so  cruel,"  added  the  lady  opposite 
Ray. 

Ray  leant  forward.  "I  know  it's  hard,  and  I 
know  it's  dreadful,  and  I  know  it's  cruel.  But  so 
is  the  world.  Nothing  could  be  harder  or  more  dis- 
tracted or  more  angular.  Don't  you  see  it's  all  a 
reflection?" 

In  a  moment  he  had  entirely  changed.  He 
looked  years  older.  His  very  face  seemed  sud- 
denly to  have  grown  harsh  and  angular.  The 
luncheon  party  leant  back  in  their  chairs  en  masse. 
Mr.  Sheldon  was  going  to  talk.  That  was  already, 
in  New  York,  a  signal  for  silence. 

Ray  kept  his  eyes  on  the  picture,  and  seemed  to 
talk  to  it.  "I  don't  know  whether  it's  right  or 
wrong,  but  I  know  it's  true — and  that's  why  I 
think  it's  right.  When  I  came  back  from  France, 
for  a  time  I  just  saturated  myself  in  Oxford.  I 
thought  it  was  the  most  lovely  place  on  earth. 
And  then  suddenly  I  realised  it  was  all  wrong — it 
was  all  lies.  I'd  been  living  in  a  dream,  making 
up  sonnets,  and  playing  soft  music,  and  wander- 
ing about  in  the  moonlight.  It  wasn't  real.  All 
those  beautiful  curved  domes  and  spires  and  things, 
all  the  old  stone  and  the  damnable  picturesqueness 
of  the  place — why  should  they  be  so  lovely  when 


354  PATCHWORK 

the  world's  what  it  is?  If  I  built  a  war  memorial 
now,  I  should  build  it  of  steel,  I  should  build  it 
straight  up,  on  a  bare  rock,  absolutely  naked,  and 
pitiless  and  grey.  If  I  wrote  poetry  now,  I  should 
write  hard  short  metallic  lines,  and  if  I  painted  a 
picture,  it  would  be  painted  with  nothing  but  bright 
green  and  hard  bright  red — like  that  picture  there." 

He  paused  again.     Nobody  said  anything. 

"Don't  you  see,  it's  all  a  reaction  against  the 
sort  of  false  softness  we'd  been  living  in  before  the 
war?  Everything  was  just  warm  and  happy,  we 
ignored  tragedy  and  we  ignored  death.  And  then 
suddenly  they  both  came  down  on  us,  and  we  got 
nothing  else.  And  we  saw  that  really  there  was 
nothing  else  that  wasn't  sham.  We'd  been  en- 
ervated and  precious.  Our  minds  were  over-heated. 
And  now  we've  swung  violently  round  the  other 
way,  because  it's  the  only  way  to  swing.  I  feel 
now  an  absolutely  violent  hatred  against  all  that 
sort  of  pre-war  attitude.  I  feel  as  though  my 
hands  were  hot  and  sticky,  and  as  though  I  simply 
had  to  cool  them  on  cold  steel.  I  feel  all  that  soft 
beauty  of  Oxford  is  an  insult.  There's  been  so 
much  formlessness,  so  much  colour,  just  colour 
without  form — in  everything,  in  life,  in  politics,  in 
art.  Men  didn't  plan  their  lives,  they  lived  them 
haphazard,  and  tried  to  colour  them  by  just  getting 
a  few  distorted  pleasures  now  and  then.  States- 
men didn't  even  plan  their  policies,  there  was  no 


PERORATION  355 

form  about  them,  there  was  just  a  charming  drift, 
with  a  lot  of  picturesque  ceremony  and  stuff.  And 
you  know  where  it  all  led  to.  It's  the  same  in 
art — with  the  exception  of  people  like  Cezanne 
and  Epstein — every  one  was  just  decorating  and 
colouring.  It  was  all  just  a  patchwork — a  patch- 
work oj  colour  and  emotion — and  that's  broken  up. 
And  now  I  want  something  sharp —  something 
absolutely  clear  cut  and  direct.  I  want  some- 
thing brutal  and  naked. 

"I  came  away  from  Oxford  because,"  he 
paused  for  a  moment  and  shut  his  lips  tightly, 
"well,  there  was  one  big  reason,  and  perhaps  that 
showed  me  the  rest.  Anyway,  I  came  to  New  York 
because  it's  straight  and  uncompromising,  and  be- 
cause it's  here  for  a  purpose.  I  look  at  the  ware- 
houses and  the  skyscrapers  just  to  get  comfort.  I 
love  everything  about  them.  I  love  their  hard 
black  roofs  and  their  straight  lines.  I  love  their 
angles,  and  their  grit,  and  their  brightness.  I 
love  them  because  they're  steel  and  not  rotten 
old  stone,  and  because  they're  straight  and  not 
crooked,  and  because  they're  mechanical — and 
because  I've  been  turned  into  a  machine.  It's  al- 
most physical,  the  sensation  I  mean.  I  feel  I 
want  to  put  my  hands  on  the  cold  roofs,  and  cool 
my  face  against  the  hard  rails.  It's  like  drinking 
cool  water  when  one  is  dying  of  thirst.  .  .  ." 

He  stopped  suddenly  and  looked  down  at  his 


356  PATCHWORK 

tightly  clenched  hands.  Slowly  he  released  them 
and  tried  to  smile.  But  for  once,  the  smile  which 
he  had  worn  so  bravely  now  for  nearly  two  years 
refused  to  come.  He  felt  terribly  as  though  he 
might  cry.  Everything  was  so  lonely,  his  listeners 
so  cruel,  so  far  away.  .  .  . 

Oxford — how  he  longed  again  for  Oxford!  It 
would  be  spring  now  at  Oxford,  and  the  larches 
would  be  green  over  the  Cherwell.  Boar's  Hill  was 
ripe  with  bluebells  now,  and  there  would  be  prim- 
roses in  Chorley  Wood.  The  very  names  of  these 
places  were  sweet.  Oxford! — the  city  that  be- 
longed to  youth,  to  enthusiasm,  to  impulse,  and  to 
laughter.  .  .  . 

Through  the  bright  gilded  windows  he  looked 
out  wistfully  to  the  drifting  clouds. 


THE  END 


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